EMOTE STORAGE THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of Julins Doerner, Chicago Purchased, 1918. f Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/lifeitsnaturevar00grin_0 LIFE ITS BY PHENOMENA. LEO. H. GRINDON, LECTURER ON BOTANY AT THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, MANCHESTER; AUTHOR OF “EMBLEMS,” “ FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE,” ETC. FIFTH AMERICAN EDITION. PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPIlSrCOTT & CO 1869. £10 G^dits- 0 . £ PREFACE. o The object of this work is two-fold. First, it is proposed to give a popular account of the phenomena which indicate the presence of that mysterious, sustaining force we denominate Life, or Vitality, and of the laws which appear to govern their mani- festation ; secondly, will be considered those Spiritual, or Emo- tional and Intellectual States, which collectively constitute the essential history of our temporal lives, rendering existence either pleasurable or painful. The inquiry will thus embrace all the most interesting and instructive subjects alike of physiology and psychology : the constitution and functions of the bodies in which we dwell ; the delights which attend the exercise of the intellect and the affections ; the glory and loveliness of the works of God, will all come under notice, and receive their fitting meed of illus- tration. Especially will the practical value and interest of life be pointed out ; the unity and fine symmetry of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good; the poetry of “common things,’^ and the intimate dependence of the whole upon Him in whom “we live, and move, and have our being. ’ ’ Man, as the noblest recipi- ent, upon earth, of the divine life, will naturally be the principal object of consideration ; not, however, the only one. Seeing that he is the Archetype of the entire system of living things, the principles of a true doctrine concerning him become the 3 ' I. I } 4 PREFACE. principles of Naturcal History in every one of its departments. Animals, plants, even the inorganic world of minerals, will all, therefore, be taken account of, in so far as will be needful to the general purpose of the volume. To those who care for the illus- tration which physical science casts upon the science of mind, and upon the truths of Revelation, there will probably be much that is both novel and inviting. In fact, it has been sedulously aimed to show how intimate and striking is the relation of human knowledges, and how grand is the harmony of things natural and divine. Some readers may regard the combination of physiology, poetry, and theology, so eminently characteristic of these chap- ters, as detrimental to their value, since the subjects in question are commonly regarded as incongruous. It is sufficient to say, in anticipation of such criticism, that one great aim of the entire work is to show the essential consanguinity of every form of human thought and human feeling. There has been no hesita- tion in dealing with some of the most sacred of topics. The physical and the spiritual worlds are in such close connection, that to attempt to treat philosophically of either of them apart from the other, is to divorce vrhat Grod has joined together. Though the authorized teacher of holy things undoubtedly has his special office, it is no invasion, therefore, of his prerogative to speak ‘ ‘ religiously’ ’ on themes so high and beautiful as the attestations of the divine love expressed in nature. Science without religion is empty and unvital. True wisdom, finding the whole world expressive of God, calls upon us to walk at all times and in all places, in the worship and reverent contemplation of Him. Wishful at all times to speak modestly, and upon sacred matters always most reverently, if a single sentence in the volume can be shown not to be in accordance with, or can be proved contrary to a right and true interpretation of Scripture. PREFACE. 5 it is liere, once for all, acknowledged false, and declared un- spoken. The views which are set forth lay few claims to originality. They are such as have been held by select thinkers in every age, though perhaps never before expressed connectedly, or in similar terms. Not that the book is a mere compilation of time-worn facts. Several of the chapters, such as those upon Rejuve- nescence, and the Prefigurations of Nature, deal with subjects hitherto scarcely touched. Neither are the views here offered final, or binding on a single reader ; they are offered as opinions and convictions rather than as dogmas. Certainly, most part of the work is written affirmatively, but this must be taken only as * indicating earnestness of conviction ; anything like dogmatizing is altogether disclaimed. They are views which have brought inexpressible happiness to the writer ; and they are offered in the hope that, while they may render the strange mystery of life less perplexing, they will help to render others happy likewise. That the book is in many respects greatly deficient, no one can become more sensible than the author is. It would be remark- able were it otherwise, when the vast extent of the subject is considered, and the impossibility of compressing it into moderate limits. Ordinarily, those subjects have been preferred for con- sideration which are least commonly attended to. Some may seem to call for more lengthy treatment than they receive ; but they are designedly curtailed, because already discussed in extenso by authors of repute. Such are Sleep, and the Brain. The incompleteness of the remarks upon others is compensated in the author’s separate writings. A large number of quotations will be found, ample reference being made to the authorities in all the more important of them, and the remainder acknowledged in the usual manner. The reader who is acquainted with the 1 ^ 5 ^ 6 PREFACE. authors cited will not regret to meet old friends ; and to the younger student, they may be valuable as pointing to new sources of information. Inserted, as a considerable portion of them have been, purely from memory, exercised over a long and diver- sified course of reading, it has been impossible always to authen- ticate minutely. For the benefit of the younger reader, copious references to the literature of the subject are also introduced ; the book forming, in this respect, a kind of index. Appended will be found an appropriate adjunct to the subject of Life, in the shape of a little essay on “Times and Seasons.'' CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PAGE General idea of Life, and universality of its presence — Latent life — Value of the doctrine sought to be established 11 CHAPTER 11. The Source of life, and the rationale of life — The essence of life un- disco verable — Laws of Nature 26 CHAPTER III. The varieties of life — Organic life — The vital stimuli — Correlation of forces 38 CHAPTER IV. Food — Molecular death and renewal of the body — Specialities of food — Hunger the source of moral order — Hunger and love the world^s two great ministers 57 CHAPTER V. The Atmosphere in its relation to life — Respiration — The Heart and the Lungs — Respiration of plants — Trees in grave-yards 77 CHAPTER VI. Motion the universal Sign of life — Motion in plants — Motion needful to Beauty — The Sea and the Clouds — Repose 100 CHAPTER VII. Death-'-Causes of physical death — The Blood — The nervous system — Tenacity of Life — Death of plants Ill 7 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE The various leases of life — Lease of life in plants — Trees — Death bal- anced by reproduction 128 CHAPTER IX. Duration of life in Animals — Leases of the Mammalia; of Birds; of Fishes and Reptiles; of Insects — Lease of Human Life 152 CHAPTER X. Grounds of the various lease of life — Spiritual basis of nature — The material world representative only — Materialism and Spiritualism.. 175 CHAPTER XL Grounds of the various lease of life, continued — Correspondence of Nature and Mind — Leases of extinct animals and plants — The Pre- Adamite world — Geology and Psychology 194 CHAPTER XII. The spiritual expression of life — Nature and Seat of the Soul — The Soul a spiritual body 207 CHAPTER XIII. Soul, Spirit, Ghost — Meaning of these words — Philosophy of Lan- guage— Anima and Animus — Psyche and Pneuma — Summary 227 CHAPTER XIV. True idea of Youth and Age — Age no matter of Birth-days — The In- tellect in advanced life — Life is Love 249 CHAPTER XV. The affections in relation to life — Love of Nature — Poetry of Com- mon things — The Imagination — Natural History and the Pulpit — Town versus Country 264 CHAPTER XVI. The Intellectual faculties in relation to Life — True idea of Education — Reading — The Friendship of Books 280 CONTENTS. 9 CHAPTER XVIL PAGE The Religious Element of Life — True idea of Religious Sects — Worldly pleasures and Religion 298 CHAPTER XVIIL Life realized by Activity — Action the law of Happiness — Ennui — Art of Conversation — Play 311 CHAPTER XIX. Death in relation to the spiritual life — Scriptural meanings of Death. 333 CHAPTER XX. Rejuvenescence — Death an operation of Life — Sleep — Spring — The Poem of Geology — Flowering plants and Humanity — New doc- trines and old 344 CHAPTER XXL Health and Disease^The miracle of Healing — Rationale of mira- cles — Unity of Truth 366 CHAPTER XXII. Mortality and Immortality — Life to be made the most of — Sorrow for the Dead — Why is man immortal? — Doctrine of the immortality of brutes 386 CHAPTER XXIII. The Resurrection and the Future Life — True and false emblems of Death — Dreams — The Spiritual World 406 CHAPTER XXIV. The Analogies of Nature — Law of Prefiguration 425 CHAPTER XXV. The Chain of Nature — Continuous and Discrete Degrees — Law of Promotion 447 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVI. PAQB The Unity of Nature — Homology — True principles of Classification of organized beings 470 CHAPTER XXVII. Man the Epitome of Nature — Three Kingdoms of the Human Body — Three Degrees of Human Life 497 CHAPTER XXVIII. Instinct and Reason — Instinct co-ordinate with Life — Specialties of Instinct 509 CHAPTER XXIX. Instinct and Reason, continued — Instinct in Man — Reason and Intelli- gence 521 CHAPTER XXX. Summary — Inspiration — Life epitomized in Genius 535 TIMES AND SEASONS 545 LIFE. CHAPTER I. GENERAL IDEA OF LIFE, AND UNIVERSALITY OF ITS FRESENCE. 1. Life is the loftiest subject of philosophy. There is no place where life is not present; and there never was a time when life was not. In the great composite fact of a Crea- tor are involved the elemental facts of Omnipresence and Eternity of existence; and these, in turn, involve Infinite Creative Activity, which is the production and sustentation of arenas of ever-renovated life. To suppose the Creator ever to have been inactive or unproducing, would be to sup- pose him inconsistent with himself. Doubtless every one of the innumerable orbs of the universe had a beginning , — some, probably, were created long subsequently to others, and are comparatively in their childhood; but a period when there were no worlds, — no terraqueous scenes of the bestowal of the Divine Love, the mind is incapable of con- ceiving. Ancient as our own world is, there were morning stars” which ‘^sang together” at its nativity. That such scenes of life do really exist, certainly we neither know, nor is it probable that it lies within the power of man scien- tifically to determine; but the affirmative is congenial alike to reason, philosophy, and enlarged ideas of God. Truth in such matters is determined by balancing probabilities, rather than by rigid, mathematical demonstration. If the 11 12 PROPER MEANING OF THE TERM LIFE. former proposition be admissible, namely, that an inactive, unproducing Creator is a contradiction in terms, the “})lu- rality of worlds” is a corollary almost inevitable. “Life was not made for matter, but matter for life. In whatever spot we see it, whether at our feet, or in the planet, or in the remotest star, we may be sure that life is there, — life physical to enjoy its beauties — life moral to worship its maker — life intellectual to proclaim his wisdom and his power.” Doubt- less, too, every shape of organized existence had its own special era of commencement, as illustrated in the sequen- tialism of the fossils beneath our feet;* but those very fossils show at the same moment, that organic life is contempora- neous with the consolidation of the worlds which it embel- lishes, and thus with the dayspring of Time. The very purpose of a world’s creation is that it shall be at once clothed and made beautiful with life. “For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, — God himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it; He created it not in vain ; He formed it to be inhabited.” 2. Under the term Life, however, rightly regarded, is comprehended far more than it is ordinarily used to denote. We err, if when thinking of the habitations of life associate it only with ourselves, animals, and plants. Life, in its proper, generic sense, is the name of the sustaining * The non-geological reader may be apprised that the petrified remains of animals and plants, which form so large a portion of col- lections of natural curiosities, are not mixed indiscriminately in the earth, but always occupy the same relative places, — that is, every layer or stratum, or at least every group of strata, has its peculiar fossils, showing that there must have been as many distinct creations as there are changes in the character of the relics. When plants and animals first appeared upon our planet, geology will probably never be able to point out, nor even to calculate. Azoic rocks are no proof of azoic periods. ITS UNIVERSALITY. 13 principle by which everything out of the Creator subsists, whether worlds, metals, minerals, trees, animals, mankind, angels, or devils, together with all thought and feeling. Nothing is absolutely lifeless, though many things are relatively so; and it is simply a conventional restriction of the term, which makes life signify no more than the vital energy of an organized, material body, or the phenomena in which that energy is exhibited. Though in man life be at its maximum, it is not to be thought of as concentrated in him, nor even in ‘^animated nature,” outside of which there is as much life as there is inside ; though not the same expres- sion of life. “The life which works in your organized frame,” said Laon, “is but an exalted condition of the power which occasions the accretion of particles into this crystalline mass. The quickening force of nature through every form of being is the same.”* “The characteristic,” observes another quick-sighted writer, “ which, manifested in a high degree, we call Life, is a characteristic manifested only in a lower degree by so-called inanimate objects.”t Hufeland, Oersted, Humboldt, Coleridge, in his “Theory of Life,” Arnold Guyot, in “The Earth and Man,” and many others, express themselves in similar terms, none, however, more explicitly than the distinguished Carus: — “The idea of Life is co-extensive with Universal Nature. The indi- vidual or integrant parts of Nature are the members; uni- versal nature is the total and complete organism. The relations of inorganic to organized bodies exist only by reason of this; hence, too, the universal connection, the combination, the never-ceasing action and re-action of all the powers of nature, producing the vast and magnificent * “Panthea; or, the Spirit of Nature,’^ by Robert Hunt, p. 50, 1849. f Herbert Spencer. — Westminster Review, April, 1852, p. 472. 2 14 TESTIMONY OF LANGUAGE. whole of the world; — an action and re-action which would be impossible, were not all pervaded by a single principle of Life.’’* Strictly speaking, every atom of the constituent matter of our globe is alive. ‘‘Inanimate matter,” “dead matter,” often vaguely spoken of, matter waiting for the breath of Deity to give it life, exists only in fable. Matter is not a hearth existing anteriorly to life, and independently of life, and upon which the flame of life is sometime kindled. In its very simplest and crudest forms it is a sign that the flame is already burning. The language of poetry, or rather of the poetic sentiment, — the golden key to the essential mean- ings of words, and the teacher of their right applications, has from ages immemorial shown that life is no mere term of physiology; and Scripture, which is the sum and immortal bloom of all poetry, pronounces, in its usages, a divine con- firmation. In the force and multiplicity of its figurative applications, no word takes precedence of Life, — a fact which mere accident or conformity to other men’s example would be quite insufficient to account for; the reason is that what we ordinarily call “Life,” namely, organic, physiolo- gical life, is the exponent and explanatory phase of a prin- ciple felt to be omnipresent, manifold in expression, but uniform in entity. The profound, unerring perceptions of the harmonies of nature, which were the original archi- tects, and are the conservators and trustees of language, acknowledged no private property in words; and though conventionalism and contraction of view may seek to enslave particular terms. Life among the number, ever and ever do those perceptions free them from their bonds, and pass them on to their rightful inheritances. Hence it is that on the * “The Kingdom of Nature: their Life and Affinity,’’ by Dr. G. Cams, Translated from the German, in Taylor’s Scientific Me- moirs, vol. i., p. 223. 1837. LIFE VARIOUSLY MANIFESTED. 15 lips of the poet; — that is, on the lips of every man who is in closer alliance with God, and Truth, and Nature than are the multitude; — words which with the vulgus have but one solitary, narrowed meaning, are continually found serving varied and brilliant purposes, which Taste appreciates and relishes delightedly. Strange and unnatural as its phrases may sound to the unreflective mind, figurative language, rightly so called, is Nature’s high-priest of Truth. ‘‘Rightly so called,” because metaphors and similes founded upon mere arbitrary or far-fetched comparisons, though often confounded with figurative language, are generally but its mockery and caricature. True figurative language is an echo of the divine, immortal harmonies of nature, thus their faithful expositor, the vestibule of Philosophy, and an epi- tome of the highest science of the universe. 3. When it is popularly said, then, that one thing is ani- mate, and another inanimate ; that life is present here, but absent there; the simple fact of the matter is that a particu- lar manifestation of life is absent or present. Such phrases come of confounding Expression, which is variable, with Principle, which is uniform. A particular presentation of life is contemplated, and thus not only is the principle itself misconceived, but everything which does not conform to the assumed impersonation of it is pronounced contrary to that which in reality has no contraries. Just as with popular notions of what constitutes Religion, which it is impossible rightly to apprehend and define, so long as it is confounded with the forms of faith, and the modes and attitudes of wor- ship, by which it is locally sought to be realized. It is a mere assumption, for instance, that life is present only where there are physical growth, feeding, motion, sensation, repro- duction, &c. Life confines itself to no such scanty costume ; and as if it would rebuke the penuriousness of a doctrine which so limits and degrades it, often forbears from all the 16 FUNGI AND SPONGES. more striking phenomena of the series, in the very depart- ments of nature of which they are asserted to be cliaractcris- tic; and expresses itself so slenderly, that science needs all its eyes and analogies to discern it. In the fungi, for example, and in the sponge, both of which forms of being, by reason of their attenuated presentation of life, have been regarded in time past as belonging to inorganic nature. Fungi have been thought to be the extinguished relics or corpses of the beautiful meteors called “ falling stars sponges have been deemed mere concretions of the foam of the sea. There is found,” says old Gerarde, “ upon the rocks neare vnto the sea, a certaine matter wrought together of the fome or froth of the sea, which we call spunges.” It is proper to remark, however, that by Aristotle, the father of natural history, the animal constitution of sponges was at all events anticipated.* So with the beautiful frondose zoophytes called Sertularia, Thuiaria, Plumularia, Flustra, &c.f So late as a century ago, the mineralogists disputed the zoological and botanical claims to the possession of these beautiful organisms, con- tending that they were formed by the sediment and agglu- tination of a submarine, general compost of calcareous and argillaceous materials, moulded into the figures of trees and * For a long and eminently interesting account of the opinions and discoveries of the nature of Sponges, and of their situation and rank in the scale of organized being, see the admirable History of British Sponges and Lithophytes,’’ by the late lamented Dr. George Johnson, the Gilbert White of the sea. f Though these names may not be familiar, the objects they designate are known to all who have interested themselves in the curiosities and wonders of the shore. Resembling sea-weeds in their general aspect and configuration, and commonly confounded with them, they are, nevertheless, readily distinguishable by their semi-crystalline texture, and wliitish brown color; the prevailing colors of true sea-weeds being pink, green, or dark olive. THE IDEA OF LIFE A PROGRESSIVE ONE. 17 mosses by the motion of the waves ; by crystallization (as in salts), or by some imagined vegetative power in brute matter. Ray himself seems not to have made up his mind about them, for though in some of his writings he indicates a correct apprehension of their nature, in the Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of Creation,” he includes them among inanimate, mixed bodies,” or stones, metals, mine- rals, and salts.” “ Some,” says he, have a kind of vegeta- tion and resemblance of plants, as Corals, Pori, and Fun- gites, which grow upon the rocks like shrubs.” The fact is, the notions of life and of what lives, as of the whole, genuine, truth in any matter, are things essentially of growth, and modification for the better. The popular notion of life is not a censurable one. It necessarily precedes ; the error be- ing to remain in it after it has been shown to be only part of a truth. Partial truths everywhere form the beginnings of knowledge. In science, in philosophy, in theology, it is neither so much nor so often that positively false doctrines are held, as defective ones. The difierence between the intellec- tual conditions of childhood and maturity, and thus between their counterparts, the uncultivated and the cultivated mind, consists, mainly, in the ability to discriminate between what is less true and what is more completely true. Unfortunately, we are all of us too prone to rest content with our little glimpses, and to deem them the absolute total. Tell the"" dull-witted, uninformed man that the gray, leatherlike fun- gus upon the old paling lives as veritably as he himself does, and he will laugh at you. To him, eating, drinking, and movement from place to place alone indicate life. You may get his assent perhaps to the proposition that the beau- tiful tree swaying its branches there, is alive ; but to make the same demand on behalf of the lichens, is to quench all his belief in your sincerity, if not in your sanity. To the perception of this higher theorem he must progress, as his 2 18 LIFE DOES NOT IMPLY VOLITION. teacher did before him, and as that teacher also himself fur- ther progresses, when not shackled by a mistaken deference, to the perception of a sustaining life even in inorganic things. No estimate of facts in nature can be regarded as just, consistent, and complete, which confines itself to a fixed circumference, calling everything ]'»oyond, barbarian. In his sphere, the philosopher who sees life only in organic things, is no more advanced than the rustic and the child, who allow it only to animals. 4. It needs very little observation of nature to perceive that life does not necessarily imply consciousness or feeling. If it did, the whole vegetable creation would be lifeless, to- gether with many animal structures of humble kind, as the sponge and allied beings. So with the mere circumstances, separately taken, of volitional movement, feeding and growth. As regards movement, for instance, no observa- tion or experiment has rendered it even probable that plants ever move volitionally, and the same may be said of the humble animal organisms just alluded to. This might be presupposed, indeed, from the utter absence from plants and the sponge, of consciousness and sensation, seeing that with- out these there can be no volition, and therefore no impulse to move. The fascinatingly curious examples of movement furnished in the different kinds of Sensitive-plant,* may * There are many kinds of sensitive-plant besides the species commonly so called, though nearly all are comprised in the great family of plants called Leguminosce. The veritable 3Iwiosa sensitiva is a very different thing from the beautiful little 3Iimosa pudicaj the species ordinarily known as the sensitive-plant. The other exam- I)le8 of sensitiveness occur in different species of Oxalideos, a family of which our English wood-sorrel is the type ; and in the extraordi- nary plants known as tlie fly-catchers, comprehended in the family of Broseraceca, the most remarkable being the North American Venus’ fly-trap, or Bionoea muscipula. PHENOMENA OF VEGETABLE LIFE. 19 seem to be exceptional, but the whole of these are referable to causes which involve no degree whatever of volition. The most curious of all, namely, the play of the leaflets of the Moving-plant,* may be compared with such movements in the animal body as that of the heart, which is constantly pulsating, yet quite independently of the will, and even out of its control. Exceptions may also seem to occur in the closing and opening of many kinds of flowers, commonly called their sleep and their waking ; also in the folding and re-expansion of the leaves, and in the advance of the sta- mens of certain flowers towards the pistil. For all of these, however, there is adequate explanation. Causes exciting from without, manifestly elicit the chief part of the respec- tive movements ; while others are purely mechanical. Nothing is easier to perceive, for instance, than that the leap of the stamens of the Kalmia from their niches in the corolla, comes of the wider expansion of the flower, which unfixes the anthers, and thus causes the filaments to ex- change their constrained curvature for the straightness of freedom. f The only other kind of vegetable movement ap- parently volitional, is that of the minute aquatics called, from the nature of their motion, Oscillatoria, Carpenter compares this to the ciliary movement in animals, which is * The Moving-plant, or Desmodium gyrans^ is a native of Bengal, and one of the family of the Leguminosae above mentioned. Its leaves are somewhat like those of the clover, and the leaflets, under given circumstances, keep movirig up and down. An excellent colored drawing of it may be seen in the leones Plantarum Kario- rum^’ of Jacquin, vol. iii., tab. 565. Similar movements take place in the Desmodium gyroides and D. vespertilionis, f For particulars of various plant-movements of this nature, see BalfouFs “Class-Book of Botany,’^ pp. 492-500; and on the subject of plant motion in general. Carpenters “ Principles of General and Comparative Physiology,’^ chap. xv. 20 PHYSIOLOGICAL PHENOMENA. SO independent of volition as often to continue after the organism itself is dead.* 5. That the mere act of feeding is not an indispensable testimony to the presence of life, is shown in deciduous trees, or those which cast their foliage in the autumn, and hyber- nate till spring, seeing that without the presence of leaves, no true vegetable nutrition can proceed. Insects, while in the chrysalis form, exemplify the same thing, as do all kinds of hybernating animals. So with the phenomenon of grow- ing, That this is not needed in order to betoken life, is illus- trated in every egg before it is placed under the hen, and in every seed before put into the soil. Contemplating ‘‘ latent life,’’ as the physiologists call it, or that which supports the egg and the seed prior to hatching and germination, we dis- cover in fact, that behind the scenes there is, if possible, even more life than in front. Millions of beings enjoy complete * For descriptions and colored drawings of the Oscillatoria, see the ‘^British Fresh-water Algse’’ of Hassall, (1845), wherein is shown reason also for supposing the motion of these plants to have been misunderstood and exaggerated to such an extent as to have sur- rounded them with an unnecessary degree of mystery. Ciliary motion ” is that of the cilia, in animalcules the principal organs of locomotion and of obtaining food ; but best to be under- stood, perhaps, from what these organs and their movements are in our own bodies. The human cilia are minute, transparent hairs, ranging from l-500th to l-5000th of an inch in length, and covering various interior surfaces, with which water, or other more or less fluid matters are commonly in contact. They abound about the eyes and ears, and cover the whole extent of the respiratory mucous tract. Tlieir oflice is to assist in propelling onwards, and usually outwards, the fluid matters brought into contact with them ; and they do this either by constantly waving backwards and forwards, or by whirling round on their bases, so that the extremities describe circles — the natural result being a continuous current in a determinate direction. Tlie waving and whirling are the ‘‘ciliary movement.” LATENT LIFE — VITALITY OF SEEDS. 21 and active life ; tens of millions lie potentially alive, crowd- ing with intense vitality the very places which to appearance seem most empty. When excavations are made in the ground, the earth 'brought to the surface speedily becomes covered with plants, the seeds of which, as they could not possibly have been conveyed there at the moment, must have been lying in the soil, accidentally buried at some re- mote period, too deep to be acted upon by the rain and air. This is rendered the more indisputable by the curious fact that plants of different species from those common in the neighborhood, not infrequently spring up among the others. Ploughing deeper than usual will occasion similar resurrec- tions, and the same when the surface soil of old gardens is pared off. Often has there shone a lovely and unexpected renewal of choice blossoms on removing the turf under the walls of old, gray castles and abbeys, which for ages, ivy and the faithful wall-flower alone have solaced.* The water contains similar stores, holding in suspension myriads of germs of algae, ready to grow as soon as they meet with a * For remarkable instances of the tenacity of life in seeds, espe- cially when buried, see Jesse’s “Gleanings in Natural History,” vol. i., p. 138, and ii., p. 135 ; Hooker’s “ Companion to the Botanical Magazine,” vol. ii., p. 293 ; Loudon’s “ Magazine of Natural His- tory,” iii. 418 ; viii. 393 ; x. 447, &c. The well-known story of the grains of wheat taken from the hand of the Egyptian mummy, germinating after thirty centuries’ capti- vity, though doubted by many, Schleiden at least is a believer in. “ How long,” says he, “ the vital power may slumber in the seed, is shown by the fact that the late Count Yon Sternberg raised healthy plants of wheat from grains which were found in a mummy case (which, therefore, must have reposed for three thousand years), and' laid them before the Assembly of Naturalists at Freyburg. This experiment has also been made in England.” (“The Plant,” p. 71.) Eggs have been found in a perfect state no less than three hundred years old. See “Gardeners’ Chronicle,” August 20th, 1853, p. 54, 22 INVISIBLE FLOATING SEEDS. suitable resting-place. ‘‘Before we have kept our Aquarium a fortnight/’ says Mr. Gosse, “its transparent sides begin to be dimmed, and a green scurf is seen covering them from the bottom to the water’s surface. Examined with a lens, we find this substance to be composed of myriads of tiny plants, some consisting of a single row of cells of a light green hue, forming minute threads which increase in length at their extremity, and become Confervas; while others dis- play small, irregularly puckered leaves of deeper green, and develope into Ulvse and Enteromorphie.” Even the atmos- phere is charged with seeds — those minute bodies produced in such amazing numbers by the aerial cryptogamia, and which indicate their presence, like the algae in the water, the instant that circumstances enable them to vegetate. Where- ever vegetable mildew makes its appearance, it is owing to the germination of these invisible floating seeds, the vital energy of which, lying in abeyance only till a fitting sphere of acting shall be offered, is one of the most wonderful things in nature. The genera most largely represented are Penicil- lium, Oidium, Chaetomium, Sporodyce, &c.* Not only do the seeds of these and other microscopic fungi, along with those of mosses and lichens, thus float in the atmosphere, waiting their opportunity to grow ; there can be little doubt that associated with them are myriads of germs of animalr cules, especially Eotifera, which find a suitable nidus in water containing organic matter in a state of decomposition, one kind following another, according to the stage to which the decomposition has proceeded, but which remain inactive until such a nidus is afforded. It is not improbable that the glittering motes seen in the sunbeam when it shines through a small aperture into a dark room, consist in part, of these * Mildew does not ahvays consist of minute vegetable growth. Bometinies, perhaps usually, in woven fabrics, it is referable to an action purely chemical. LIFE OF THE WORLD. 23 otherwise imperceptible eggs and seeds. Light, we well know, is the great and universal Eevelator. Give light enough, and it is impossible to imagine what might not brighten into human view. The difficulty in microscopies is not so much in obtaining lenses of increased magnifying power, as in obtaining an adequate amount of light. It may be added that as life does not necessarily imply voli- tional movement, feeding, sensation, &c., so neither is any one of the instruments through which life is manifested, universally present. No one instrument in particular can be deemed therefore, as essential to life, or as absolutely characteristic and indicative of life. 6. That life does not necessarily imply organization or re- production, is shown in what may without impropriety be called the Life of the World. Doubtless, there is an impas- sable chasm between the mineral and the vegetable, as be- tween the vegetable and the animal, and between the animal and man. But this inorganic nature, which is represented as dead,’’ because it has not the same life with the animal or plant, is it then, to quote Guyot, destitute of all life ? “ It has all the signs of life, we cannot but confess. Has it not motion in the water which streams and murmurs on the sur- face of the continents, and which tosses in the waves of the sea ? Has it not sympathies and antipathies in those myste- rious elective affinities of the molecules of matter which chemistry investigates ? Has it not the powerful attractions of bodies to each other which govern the motions of the stars scattered in the immensity of space, and keep them in an admirable harmony ? Do we not see, and always with a secret astonishment, the magnetic needle agitated at the approach of a particle of iron, and leaping under the fire of the Northern Light? Place any material body whatever by the side of another, do they not immediately enter into re^ lations of interchange, of molecular attraction, of electricity. 24 LIFE OF THE SOUL. of magnetism ? In the inorganic part of matter, as in tlie organic all is acting, all is promoting change, all is itself undergoing transformation. And thus, though this life of the globe, this physiology of our planet, is not the life of the tree or the bird, is it not also a life? Assuredly it is. We cannot refuse so to call those lively actions and reactions, that perpetual play of the forces of matter, of which we are every day the witnesses. The thousand voices of nature which make themselves heard around us, and in so many ways betoken incessant and prodigious activity, proclaim it so loudly that we cannot shut our ears to their language.’’ Equally, too, may we recognize life as the central, governing force of everything comprehended under the names of Intel- lect and Will. The particular phenomena of animal and plant life may not be present, but they are replaced by phe- nomena no less truly vital. Indeed the life of the soul, or that which is played forth as the activity of the intellect and the affections, is the highest expression of all. Com- pared with this life, the life of animals and plants, and the life of the globe, are but mimicries and shadows. 7. It is this full, generic significance of the word life, which we propose to recognize and illustrate in the following pages ; physiological life taking its place, not as life abso^ lutely and exclusively, but as one manifestation among many. The doctrine which it involves is no mere hypothesis of the fancy. It is dictated by nature ; it commends itself to com- mon sense, to do which is the chief glory of all that belongs to mcommon sense; it is eminently practical ; it is promo- tive, in fact, of the highest aims of science and philosophy, metaphysical no less than physical. Here is the great cer- tificate of its soundness. For while the ultimate characte- ristic and test of every true doctrine concerning nature is that no phenomenon in the universe is absolutely beyond Uie range of its powers of interpretation, the immediate and VALUE OF OUR DOCTRINE OF LIFE. 25 proximate test lies in its capacity to illuminate every path, of human inquiry, whithersoever it may lead. Such a doctrine has not only a local value and application, but is, directly or indirectly, a clue to the whole mystery of creation. Other doctrines may help more largely in particular provinces, but no doctrine is so generally efficacious as this grand and com- prehensive one of the omnipresence and the unity of life. Life it is which gives to the universe all its reality as well as splendor, so that the larger our conception of life, the more nearly do we approach both to a just appreciation of the magnificence of nature, and to the solution of her stupen- dous problems. Not the least of the advantages accessary to the doctrine here set forth, is that the physiologist who adopts it, instead of entering on his inquiries with the sense of a great, unnatural gap between physiology and physics, finds the latter not only adjoined, but an instructive introduction. He ascends, as all rational philosophy advises, from the sim- ple to the complex. Coleridge clearly exhibits this in his “Theory of Life,” above cited; Dr. Kadcliffe well exemplifies it in his “ Proteus, or the Law of Nature.” “As an earnest,” he observes, “ of the rich harvest which is to come when the current separation of physiology from physics shall be for- gotten, several phenomena which were once deemed peculiar to living bodies are now explained by ordinary physical in- fluences.” Looked at through a single science. Life is unin- telligible ; for the sciences, separately taken, are but like the constituent portions of a telescope, we can only see properly by connecting them. Physiology, for the same reason, be- comes a pathway and preface to psychology, which inquired into without reference to physiology, as its material represen- tative, is but an intellectual ignis fatuus. Every true law in metaphysics has a law corresponding to it in physical nature, and the latter is often the surest clue whereby to find it. 3 B CHAPTER II. THE SOTTMCE OF FIFE, AND THE EATJONALE OF FIFE, 8. Life is no part of God’s works, no created and there- fore finite substance; neither is it in any case detached from him, or independent of him. As the rivers move along their courses only as they are renewed from perennial springs, welling up where no eye can reach, so is it with life. Genuine philosophy knows of no life in the universe but what is momentarily sustained by connection with its source, with Him who alone hath life in himself.” The popular notion, which sees an image of it rather in the reservoir of water, filled in the first place from the spring, but afterwards cut off*, and holding an independent exist- ence, is countenanced neither by science nor revelation. How can independent vitality pertain even to the most insignificant of created forms, when it is said so expressly that ‘Gn Him all things live, and move, and have their being?” Even man has no life of his own, though of nothing are people more fully persuaded than that they live by virtue of an inborn vital energy, to maintain which, it needs only that they shall feed and sleep. Not that men deny the general proposition that life is from God, and in the hands of God. Every one is willing to allow that he received his life originally from the Almighty, and that the Almighty takes it away from him when he pleases. Few, however, are willing to regard themselves as existing only by virtue of his constant infiux, which, nevertheless, is the 26 THE ESSENCE OF LIFE UNDISCOVERABLE. 27 only way in which it can be true that ‘‘ in Him we live, and move, and have our being/’ It is wounding to self-love and to the pride of human nature, to think of ourselves as so wholly and minutely dependent as we are, moment by moment, day and night, the senses all the while insinuating the reverse. Moreover, in the minds of most men there is a strong aversion to recognize physical effects as resulting from spiritual causes. Towards everything, indeed, which involves a spiritual element — which lifts us above the region of the senses, there is a deep-seated dislike, such as mere argument is perhaps incapable of overcoming, and which can only give way, it would seem, under the influence of higher moral feelings. Truly to understand anything of God’s government and providence, we must first of all be faithful to his revealed law. We can form no right esti- mate, either of nature or of life, till we strive, with his divine blessing, to become in ourselves more truly human. 9. Uncreate and infinite, it follows that of the precise nature of this grand, all-sustaining principle, this Life as we call it, man must be content to remain forever unin- formed. Man can obtain knowledge only of finite and created things. No philosophy will ever be able to explain life, seeing that to explain” is to consider a phenomenon in the clearness of a superior light, and that life is itself and already the highest light. However it may be mani- fested, to man life can never be anything hut life. This is no misfortune ; perhaps it is an advantage. It is impossible to become either good or wise unless we can make ourselves contented to remain ignorant of many things; and the grander the knowledges we must learn cheerfully to forego, the more useful is the discipline. As there is a time to get and a time to lose,” so is there a time to seek and a time to refrain from seeking. The hypothesis of a vital force,” by v/hich some have sought to account for life, does no more 28 NATURAL LAWS. than pash the difficulty a little further hack, since the ques- tion immediately arises, AVhat is the “vital force,’^ and whence derived ? AVhether we contemplate it in inorganic nature, or in organic, and by whatever name we may choose to designate it, force is nowhere innate, nor is it originally produced or producible by any combinations or conditions of matter, viable or invisible. Everywhere in the consider- ation of force, we are told of a power within and underlying that which we are contemplating. Nowhere do we find the power itself, but only the continent of the power ; perhaps merely the sensible effect by which its presence is indicated. No forco, in a Avord,in the whole range of material nature, is initiaL The utmost point to which science can convey us, even when dealing with the most occult and recondite phe- nomena — those of electricity for example — never shows where force begins. There is always a still anterior force, which cannot be found except by the light of Theology. In philosophy, as in trouble and in death, willing or unwilling, we must go to God at last. 10. Others refer life to the “laws of nature.” This, within certain limits, is perfectly proper. Life, in all its varied phases and manifestations, does come, most assuredly, of the “ laws of nature.” The error is to remain in the laws of nature, and deem that life comes of these only. Laws of nature, in themselves, have no more efficacy than “vital force,” and have as little independent existence. “In all ages of the world,” says Hitchcock, “where men have been enlightened enough to reason upon the causes of phenomena, a mysterious and a mighty power has been imputed to the laws of nature, A large portion of the most enlightened men have felt as if these laws not only explain, but possess an inherent power to continue, the ordinary operations of nature. But what is a natural law without the presence and energizing power of the limgiver f Who can show how GOD ALONE IS LIFE. 29 a law operates except through the influence of the lawgiver? H6w unphilosophical, then, to separate a law of nature from the Deity, and to imagine him to have withdrawn from his works ! To do this would be to annihilate the law. He must be present every moment, and direct every movement of the universe, as really as the mind of man must be in his body in order to produce movement there. The law hypothesis supposes law capable of doing what only Infinite wisdom and power can do. And what is this but ascribing infinite perfection to law, and making a Deity of the laws which he ordains?’^* Law of itself could not cause or maintain the existence of a single thing, though it was ac- cording to law all things were created, and though it is by the same primitive, immutable laws, that all phenomena, both material and spiritual, are effectuated. It is the life underlying the law which causes and sustains. The law is merely the mode of the putting forth of that life ; the rule of its action ; the definite method in which the internal. Di- vine, dynamic principle is projected. Nature has no inde- pendent activity, no causality of its own. God is the only independent existence, and he is the cause of all causes. He alone hath life in himself. Proximately, the universe, and all that it contains, is ^at(;-governed : but it is at the same time fundamentally and essentially God-governed. Animals and plants, in their vital processes, the external world and all its changes, alike declare a Divine beginning. God it is who displays the manifold lovely phenomena which render the earth, the air, the sea, and their vicissitudes, pictures so vivid of human experience. The tossing of the white-crested waves; the gliding of the clouds before the wind ; the daily illumination, and the morning and evening painting of the sky ; the glitter of the stars ; the rainbow, Keligion of Geology. Lecture ix. 30 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF MATTER. these, and all other such things, come of the watchful and benevolent activity of our living Father in the heavens, who is never a mere spectator, much less an indifferent one, either in terrestrial or in spiritual things ; still are they in no case exercises of mere lawless fiat. 11. The very existence of the earth as a planetary mass depends, but in a proximate sense, on the ‘Maws of nature.’’ The same is true of the various materials which compose it; water, for example, formed under the influence of the natural law which science calls “chemical affinity.” Let the affinity be annulled, — in other words, let the Divine life cease to act upon the constituent oxygen and hydrogen, no longer im- pelling them to combine, — and every drop would instantly decompose and disappear. Under a similar withdrawal of sustaining energy, every solid and fluid of nature, even the solids we call simple and primitive, would depart; massive and impregnable as it seems, the whole of this great globe would dissolve into thin air and vanish. For just as water is resolvable into oxygen and hydrogen, so are these latter, along with the solid elements, the metals, phosphorus, iodine, &c., resolvable into yet finer elements, into which, unless supported by the Divine life, they would similarly decompose. The actually primitive elements of our earth, instead of fifty-five or fifty-six, are probably only two. The tendency, without doubt, if we look only at one department of chemical inquiry, seems of late to have been towards an increase of the number rather than to a diminution; the profounder investigations of natural philosophers dispose them, however, more strongly every day, to refer back the whole to a simple flagrant or inflammable body, and a pure conflagrant body, or supporter of fire; in other words, to an active substance and a passive. The analysis of one will lead to the reduction of all the rest, and establish the true principla whereby the science of chemistry will be coiisum- RELATION OF THE WORLD TO GOD. 31 mated. Science, be it remembered, has never made a single step except in the wake of imagination ; the practical ideas of one age have all been begotten of the impractical of a former; the morning star of all philosophy is poetry. Gold, silver, oxygen, &c., probably come each one of them of a special play of affinity between the molecules of the two primitives, having a corollary in the resulting products of absolute and relative ductility, elasticity, &c., such as causes gold to be where we find gold, silver where we find silver, as accurately and inevitably as the affinities which take place between the atoms of gold, silver, oxygen, &c., give origin, in turn, to oxides, acids, earths, alkalies. Whether there be any yet earlier conditions of matter than these two can only be reasoned upon from analogy. It is not within the ability of man to compass with actual knowledge either the maxi- mum natures or the minimum, 12. Though the Divine, by means of his life, be thus the basis of all nature, even its minutest atom, we are not to confound him with nature; — this would be even worse than the ascription of everything to “Law.” Superfluous as it may seem after the distinct references that have been made, it is well, perhaps, that upon this great and sacred point we should have, before going any further, a full and explicit understanding. The ancients described the world as a huge animal, vitalized by an impersonal xoa/wu, or anima mundi. Even in modern times we have seen it taught that — “ All are but parts of one stupendous whole. Whose body nature is, and God the soul.’’ Commonly termed “Pantheism,” this is, properly speaking, Atheism, Pantheism, rightly so called, is the doctrine which sinks nature in God. “This was the pantheism of the famous Spinoza, which some people have been so foolish as to call atheism. Spinoza was so absorbed in the idea of God, that 32 GOD AND NATURE DISTINCT. he oonhl see nothing else.” Pantheism is the most unreason- able of doctrines; atheism the most mean and gross. God is God, and nature is nature. Intimately connected with each other, yet are they absolutely distinct. Nature is an utterance of the divine mind, clothed in material configura- tions and phenomena, — flowing from it as words from the underlying thought, or the deeds of friendship from its sen- timent; God himself reigns apart from it, in the heavens. No true conception of nature can be attained, any more than a true doctrine of the grounds and uses of religion, till this great truth of the separateness, and therefore the personality of God, be acknowledged and felt. For even to think only of wisdom, power, omnipresence, &c., is not to think of God; it is but to think of a mere catalogue of abstractions; the terms are meaningless till impersonated, till we connect them, in short, with Him who said, — “He who hath seen me hath seen the Father,” — “the man Christ Jesus, who is over all, God blessed forever.” It is the im- mediate consciousness of a supreme and eternal unity, as Cams finely remarks, which enables us to distinguish the just, the true, and the beautiful; so that demonstrations of true science exist, in fact, only for those who set out with the idea of God in Christ as the beginning; studying nature from him rather than towards him. It is good to “look from Nature up to Nature’s God,” but it is better and best to look at nature from its framer and sustainer. There would be no falling into pantheism, no forgetting the Creator in the creature, were this always made the starting-point in the survey. The humanity of Christ is the true beginning of all wisdom and philosophy, no less than the immediate avenue to redemption. Not that the idea of God can be entertained irrespectively of nature; each idea is needful to the apprehension of the other. “He,” says Franz Von r>aader, “who seeks in nature, nature only, and not reason; CREATION FOREVER IN PROGRESS. he who seeks in the latter, reason only, and not God ; and he who seeks reason out of or apart from God, or God out of or apart from reason, will find neither nature, reason, nor God, but will assuredly lose them all three.’’ 13. In the ‘‘laws of nature,” accordingly, we have not “ blind, unintellectual fatalities,” but expressions of Divine volitions. They appear to us independent and sufficient, because God never discloses himself directly — only through some medium. The world is full of apparent truths ; they enter largely into our very commonest experiences ; a stick immersed in water appears to be broken ; the banks of a river seem to move as w^e sail past ; the coast seems to re- cede from the departing ship ; a burning coal swung quickly round seems a ring of fire. So with the “laws of nature.” To the eye of the senses they are one thing ; to the eye of true philosophy quite another. Seeming to accomplish all, in reality they accomplish nothing. Oersted never wrote a finer truth than that “ the conception of the universe is in- complete, if not comprehended as a constant and continuous work of the eternally-creating Spirit;” nor Emerson, in re- lation to the same fact, that “ it takes as much life to con- serve as to create,^’ Because of these great verities is it that to study the laws of nature is in reality to study the modes of God’s action; that science is simply “a history of the Divine operations in matter and mind ;” that the world, with all its antiquity, is every moment a new creation, the song of the morning stars unsuspended and unsuspendable to the ear that will listen for it, a virgin to every fresh wooer of the Beautiful and the True. 14. How close does it bring the Creator to us thus to re- gard him not so much as having made the world, as still engaged in making it; i, e., by supplying the life on which its laws, and thus its being and incidents, depend. It is an ill-constructed theology which regards God as having created 34 LfFE BEGINS IN ACTION AND REACTION. only in past ages. A gorgeous sunset, the leafing of a tree in the sweet spring-time, betokens the Divine liand no less palpably than did the miracles which provided the hungry multitudes of Galilee with food. “ Depend upon it,’’ says an eloquent preacher, depend upon it, it is not the want of greater miracles, but of the soul to perceive such as are allowed us still, that makes us push all the sanctities into the far spaces we cannot reach. The devout feel that where- ever God’s hand is, there is miracle, and it is simply an un- devoutness which imagines that only where miracle is, can there be the real hand of God. The customs of heaven ought surely to be more sacred in our eyes than its anomalies ; the dear old ways of which the Almighty is never tired, than the strange things which he does not love well enough to re- peat. He who will but discern beneath the sun, as he rises any morning, the supjDorting finger of the Almighty, may recover the sweet and reverent surprise with which Adam gazed on the first dawn in Paradise; and if we cannot find him there, if we cannot find him on the margin of the sea, or in the flowers by the way-side, I do not think we should have discovered him any more on the grass of Geth- semane or Olivet.” 15. Uncreate and infinite, it follows, in addition to conse- quences specified, that Life as to its essence is no subject for scientific consideration. All that science can do is to investi- gate the circumstances under which it is manifested, and the effects which it produces. Carefully studying these, and along with them, the processes of life, we may learn, how- ever, the rationale of its action, next to the nature of life, the grandest fact in its philosophy, and the centre and foun- dation of all true and great ideas of life; therefore a benign and animating compensation. Narrowly looked at, under- lying every ])lienomenon of the material world, and under- lying every psychological occurrence, there is found a fixed, UNIVERSAL DUALISM OF NATURE. 35 causative relation of Two things, or Two principles, as the case may be, different and unequal, yet of such a difference, and such an inequality, that like man and woman, who con- stitute the type and interpretation of the whole of nature, both visible and invisible, each Ts the complement of the other ; one being gifted with energy to act, the other with equal energy and aptitude to react. All phenomena, alike of matter and of mind, resolve into this dual virtus. Whether physical or spiritual, animal or vegetable. Life always pre- sents itself as communicated through this one simple for- mula, the reeiprocal action and reaction of complementaries. Where there are greatest variety and complexity of action and reaction, all the results converging at the same time, to one great end, as in plants, animals, and man, the presenta- tions are the grandest ; where there is least of such variety, and no such immediate reference, as in the phenomena of inorganic chemistry, there the presentations are the humblest. The great cosmic phenomena induced by Gravitation, Elec- tricity, &c., comprising everything studied by the astronomer, the meteorologist, and the electrician, form no exception. Binary causes lie at the base of all. The sun and moon cast their light upon us ; the rain falls and the waves roll ; the spheres preserve their rotundity, and persevere in their motions, all as the result of underlying dual forces. The Fabric of nature, like its phenomena, resolves, everywhere, into dualities. Land and water, male and female, the straight line and the curve, do but express prominently, a universal principle. The Elements, we have already seen, are probably, only Two. 16 . The ground of this wonderful, all-pervading dualism, and concurrent action and reaction, producing the magnifi- cent results we call Nature and Life, lies in the very nature of God himself, who is not so much the ingenious deviser and designer, displaying in the world the contrivances of 36 PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THIS DUALISM. Hkill, as its Archetype and Exemplar. That is to say, the world is what we find it, not so much because he willed it to be so, arbitrarily, as because of his containing, in his own nature, the first principles of its whole fabric and economy. It pictures in finites, what he is in infinites. Infinite AVis- dom and Infinite Goodness, or Love, as we have seen in another place,* are shown both by natural and revealed theology, to be the all-comprehending essentials of the Di- vine ; omnipotence, omniscience, justice, mercy, and every other attribute, inhering in, and manifesting and fulfilling these two. In these two principles all things have their be- ginning ; in all things therefore are they embodied and re- presented. AVherever there is life, the Divine AVisdom and Goodness are consentaneously and fundamentally declared. In one we may fancy the Divine Art shows most conspicu- ous, in another the Divine Power ; but the true seeing finds these no more than outer circles, enclosing Love and AVis- dom as the inmost. In that admirable adaptation and aptitude of things to act and react, and thus to enter into a relation of which marriage is the highest exponent, consists, accordingly, the whole principle of living action. There is no other source of phenomena, either in the animated or the inanimate world, and wherever it brings things and natures into contact, reciprocally adapted each to the other, life im- mediately appears, beautiful and exuberant. God made things complementary on purpose that they should unite, and open channels wherein his life should have new outlet ; until conjoined, and they have opened such new channels, they are everywhere restless and erratic; everywhere in earth and heaven, equilibrium comes of well assorted mar- riage, or union of complementaries, and there is no equili- * Sexuality of Nature, wherein the whole subject of the dualities and reciprocal principles of nature is exhibited and illustrated LIFE REPRESENTED IN MARRIAGE. 37 brium independent of it. Nothing, moreover, so surely brings disorder and unhappiness, as interference with natu- ral affinities, and neglecting to be guided by them. Using the word in the high and holy sense which alone properly attaches to it, i. e., as signifying the conjunction of princi- ples and affections, and only in a secondary and derivative sense, the conjunction of persons — the union of the proto- typal, all-creative Wisdom and Goodness in the Divine, is itself a marriage ; so that Life might not inappropriately be described as the playing forth of the principle of which cor- poreal marriage is the last effect. The development of a new living creature, that is, of a new incarnation of life, when there is externalized love between man and woman (who in matrimony rightfully so called, constitute the finite picture and counterpart of the Almighty), is the very sym- bol and emblem of the development of life. What the babe is to its parents, such is life, as to its presentation in phenomena, to the action and reaction of the two things or two natures underlying it. 4 CHAPTER III. THE VABIETIES OF FIFE— OTtGANIC LIFE ^ THE VITAZ STI3rUEI.” 17. Primarily, the manifestation of life is twofold, phy- sical and spiritual. Physical life is life as expressed in the constituents of the material or external world, giving exist- ence to whatever is cognizable by the senses. Spiritual life is that which gives vitality to the soul; underlying thought and feeling, animating the intellect and the affections, and sustaining all that is contained in the invisible, non-material, or spiritual world. Spiritual life, so far as it is allowed the finite mind to perceive, is expressed in only one mode: Phy- sical life is expressed in two modes, namely, as observable, (1) in the inorganic half of the material creation ; (2) in the organic half. The latter, which may be called Organic or Physiological life, presents the further distinction of life as it is in animals, (including the material body, or animal half of man;) and life as it is in vegetables. Put into a tabular form, the several distinctions may be apprehended at a glance: — A. Inorganic. '1. Physical or The expression of Life is : — Natural. B. Organic or ( 2. Spiritual Physiological, or Psychological. 38 LIFE COMMENSURATE WITH USE. 39 Inorganic life is the lowest expression; Vegetable succeeds; Animal life comes next; and highest is the Spiritual. Won- derful and truly miraculous is it that a single and purely simple element should be presented under such diverse aspects, the extremes far apart as earth and heaven, though it is not without some striking illustrative imagery in objec- tive nature, where the same substance is occasionally found under widely dissimilar forms, as happens with charcoal and the diamond, both of which consist essentially of carbon. There is a grand and beautiful law, however, in the light of which the whole matter becomes intelligible; namely, that the communication of life from God is always in the exact ratio of the Use and Destiny of the recipient object in the general economy of Creation. The more princely the heritage of office, always the more beautiful and complex is the Form of the object, and commensurately with this, the more exalted is the presentation, and the more noble the operation, of the life which fills it. This is the great funda- mental principle to which are referable all diversity of structure and configuration in nature, all dissimilitude of substance and organization, and all variety in the force and amount of Life. It may be illustrated by the operation, under its various opportunities, of water, which in compo- sition and inherent capabilities, is everywhere precisely the same. In connection with machinery, which is like the complicated and elaborate structure of organized bodies, we see it either turning the huge mill-wheel by the river; or heated into steam, making a thousand wheels whirl in con- cert; and in either case promoting mightiest ends and uses. Away from machinery, and merely gliding as a stream towards the sea, it serves but to carry onwards the boat that mav be launched upon it. Lying as a still lake, among the unpeopled and silent mountains, its energy seems depressed into inertia, though at any moment that energy is capable 40 INORGANIC LIFE. of being played forth, in all its astounding plenitude, give it but the adequate medium. So with the Divine life in tlie universe. In the words of a powerful writer, “Tlie material world, with its objects sublimely great or meanly little, as we judge them; its atoms of dust, its orbs of fire; the rock that stands by the sea-shore, the water that wears it away; the worm, a birth of yesterday, which we trample under foot; the streets of constellations that gleam perennial over- head; the aspiring palm-tree fixed to one spot, and the lions that are sent out free; these incarnate and make visible all of God their natures will admit,’’ that is, all of his Life they are competent to receive and play forth, by virtue of their respective offices in the system of the world, and the forms they hold in harmony therewith. Carbon in the shape of diamond has a nobler destiny than carbon in the shape of charcoal; therefore it receives that intenser com- munication of life which is so exquisitely phenomenon ized in crystallization, and the concurrent translucency and brightness. The soul has a nobler destiny than the body; therefore has it the imperial life whereby it travels whither it will, piercing space to its utmost bound, centrifugal as light. 18. Inorganic life, the first-named of these three great varieties or manifestations of the vitalizing principle, has been illustrated in the preceding chapters. It will suffice to add here, that it has nothing in common with organic or physiological life, much less with the spiritual ; nothing, that is to say, except the Divine origin and sustentation. The recipient forms occupy a plane of their own, in every sense subordinate and distinct, and the phenomena which they exhibit bear not the slightest similarity to those manifested upon the superior planes, as regards any strict and essential resemblance. The generalization by which it is associated with the higher varieties, proposes to view it as that particu- THE ORGANIC EXPRESSION OF LIFE. 41 lar expression of the universal Divine energy whereby inani- mate things ‘‘have their being/’ just as under another ex- pression, animate things have theirs, and nothing more. Ihe second variety, the Organic or Physiological expression of Life, — that which vitalizes plants and animals, and the ma- terial body of man, — is so called because of the playing forth of its phenomena through the medium of special in- struments or organs, as in animals, the limbs, the heart, the brain, &c., and in plants, the leaves, the flowers, the stamens, &c. Mineral substances, though they sometimes possess a very beautiful configuration, and even a kind of internal arrangement of parts, as seen in agates, never possess dis- tinct organic members. These pertain peculiarly to plants and animals, the sole subjects and recipients of organic life. Taking the word in its literal and most general sense, the phenomena of the Spiritual life are organic, being played forth like those of physiological life, through special instru- ments ; the very same instruments in fact. It is legitimate, nevertheless, to restrict the name to physiological life and phenomena, seeing that the latter take precedence of the spiritual, both in extent and diffusion, and in order of mani- festation. The race of beings alone recipient of spiritual life constitutes (as regards earth) the least part of living nature, and every member of it is animal before human. The Organic is the expression of life which, as the prime instrument of all man’s temporal enjoyments, has in every age allured his intensest interest. Its facts and mysteries have com- mended themselves to his intellect as the peerage of science and philosophy, the alpha and the omega of all natural knowledge. If, says Aristotle, the knowledge of things be- coming and honorable be deservedly held in high estima- tion ; and if there be any species of knowledge more exqui- site than another, either upon account of its accuracy, or of the objects to which it relates being more excellent or won- i2 DEFINITIONS OF LIFE. dcrful ; we should not hesitate to pronounce the history of tlie animating principle as justly entitled to hold the first rank.* * * § With all enthusiasm and assiduity accordingly, have chemis- try, anatomy, and physiology, toiled at the splendid theme. Theories innumerable have been devised with a view to its elucidation; all however, in vain, because framed in the sunless chambers of an exclusively secular philosophy. Esteemed by some the cause of organization, by others its consequence; imagined at different periods to be fire,t light, oxygen,! electricity,§ and galvanism, ‘‘still the exulting Eureka has not been uttered, either in the laboratory, the dissecting-room, or the schools of the savans. The enigma has continued to baffle all the propounders of solutions; — the heart of nature’s mystery has not been plucked out, even by the most vigorous of the wisest of her sons.” Pur- sued as a matter of purely scientific inquiry, researches into * T(t)v Ka\(ov Kal Ti[il(x}p K. r. X., nepi ^vxrjs, Book i., chap. 1, the open- ing sentence. f Among those who held this very ancient doctrine was Hippo- crates. He considered heat not only the foundation of life, but as the Divinity itself, intelligent and immortal. — AoKki hk poi o KoXionsvov Oe.pfxdv dOdvarov re eivaiy Kai voeiv pavra, k, r. X. Works, sec. iii., p. 249. Foesius^ Edit., 1621. Relics of this belief survive in the phrases vital spark, the flame of life, &c. See for curious illustrations, Bishop Berkeley’s Sirisj sections 152 to 214. t As by Girtanner, Journal de Physique, &c., tome 37, p. 139. See also Bostock’s Elementary System of Physiology, vol. 1, p. 209, 1824. § This has been a very favorite hypothesis, and still meets with approval. Abernethy, for one, regarded electricity “not merely as tlie prime agent in sensation, but as even constituting the essence of life itself.” See his “Inquiry, &c., into Hunter’s Theory of Life,” j)p. 26, 30, 35, 80, &c., 1814. It is singular to find this intelligent writer sliding into materialism at the very time when he is directing the force of liis genius against it. CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANIZED BEINGS. 43 the mystery of life cannot possibly have any other termina- tion, seeing that to follow such a course is to attend merely to Effects, and to entirely disregard and disown the Cause. Look at the results of the countless strivings to contrive 9 descriptive name for the wily Proteus; — vital principle, vis vitce, vital spirit, impetum faeiens, spirit of animation, organic force, organic agent, vis plastica, materia vitce diffusa^ &c., &c. ; — what do they amount to beyond a tacit confession of total inability? Look at the attempts, scarcely fewer, that have been made at a definition of life. If they have not been mere substitutions of many words for one, adding nothing to our previous knowledge, they have been similarly fruitless exercises in a few. When Bichat, for instance, opens his celebrated Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort,” by defining life as ‘Hhe sum of the functions by which death is resisted,’’* what is it, as Coleridge well asks, but a circuitous way of saying that life consists in being able to live? As little to the purpose is Dr. Fletcher, when he says that ^‘Life consists in the sum of the characteristic actions of organized beings, performed in virtue of a speci- fic susceptibility, acted upon by specific stimuli;” or Eich- erand, when he tells us that ‘‘Life consists in the aggregate of those phenomena which manifest themselves in succession for a limited time in organized beings.” Neither of them explains anything. Even the attempt, last in point of time, and from the lesson of others’ errors, presumable to be best * “La vie est V ensemble des fonctions qui resistent d la mortj^ See the remarks on this much criticized sentence in the edition of Bichat by Cerise. Nouvelle Mition, Paris, 1852, p. 274. Auguste Compte, a mere bookman in such subjects, devotes a long argument in his Fkilosophie Positive (tome 3, p. 288,) to what he calls, with most amusing complacency, the profonde irrationalite of his great country- man. 44 DEFINITIONS OF LIFE. in execution, — that of Herbert Spencer, wlio devotes the whole of the third part of his masterly Elements of Psycho- logy to the consideration of the subject, bringing up by careful and steady steps to the conclusion that ‘Hhe broadest and most complete definition of life will be the continuous adjustment of mternal relations to external relations^ — even this deals but, like the others, with the phenomena of life. It is no ‘‘definition,’’ — merely a statement of certain signs of life. If we are to understand by the word “ Life” simply the attestations of its presence, — the signs, and nothing more, — these several authors have done as well, perhaps, as the subject permits. But in that case we are left precisely where we were. Life itself, the thing attested, has yet to be defined, and requires a distinct and superior name. Some “definitions” have been couched in a single word, “Assimi- lation” for example. But as in the preceding cases, what is assimilation more than a circumstance of life? Were assimi- lation life itself, we should know all about the latter so soon as we had noted the assimilating process, by means of a little chemistry, in the green duckweed of the standing pool. In no way is it more paramount than reproduction is. As well might Life be defined to be Death, seeing that death is the universal end. 19. In the phenomena just adverted to, namely, the As- similation of food internally, and Reproduction of the species in direct descent ; followed after a given period of activity, by Death, consist the grand characteristics of Or- ganized beings. However plants and animals may differ among themselves, this threefold history pertains to every species without exception. Functions, accordingly, even more decidedly than organs, distinguish the members of the Vegetal)le and Animal kingdoms from the Mineral. It Is important to observe this, because in many of the humbler kinds of animals and plants, organs strictly so called, are VITAL TISSUE. 45 not developed. In the Protococcus or red-snow pi am, the whole apparatus of life is concentrated into the compass of a single microscopic cell. Assimilation and Reproduction are performed there nevertheless, proving that separate and complex organs are non-essential to them. It follows that the absolute, unexceptionable diagnosis of organized bodies consists not so much in the possession of distinct organs, as in the presence of vital tissue ; that is to say, cells filled with fluid, at all events in their younger stages, and possessing, every one of them, full powers of assimilation and repro- duction ; so that although no more than a single cell may be developed, it is still, to all intents and purposes, an or- ganized body. This latter condition is what we witness in the red-snow plant. The body of man is a vast mountain of cells of precisely the same intrinsic character as those of the Protococcus, only built into special members, and endued with a more powerful vitality. Whether members be de- veloped or not, ‘Wital tissue” is the basis of the entire organic world, as markedly as it is absent from the mineral, and forms the sedes ipsissimce of the whole of the vital pro- cesses. That they are destitute of vital tissue is the reason, accordingly, why minerals perform no functions. Wanting its sensibility and expansiveness, the stone, the metal, the crystal, once formed, lie forever afterwards in perfect still- ness, until assailed, that is, by new chemical agencies from without, tending to decompose them. No alterations take place within their substance ; they neither feed, nor breathe, nor procreate ; their once fictive life has subsided into simple, stationary existence. With the organized body it is exactly the reverse. During the whole period of its tenure of life, it presents, more or less evidently, the phenomena of growth, and of change of form and substance, many of the most important changes recurring in definite cycles of succession. Things, in a word, which are recipient only of the inorganic 46 ANIMAL AND VEGETATIVE FUNCTIONS. degree of life, are marked by but one plienomenon — that of the accretion of tlieir particles into the mass ; those which receive the organic degree, present an assemblage of phe- nomena, and these are both simultaneous and continuous. The active life of the mineral ceases as soon as the mineral is formed ; that of the organized body goes on unabated ly, and is even more vigorous after the completion of the form proper to it, than before. The diamond ceases from active life as soon as it becomes a diamond ; whereas the corre- sponding period in the history of an animal is precisely that of its highest energy commencing. 20. Animals contrasted with plants show distinctions equally sharp, though in many points these two great classes of beings are most intimately allied. In the former, the organs, and therefore the functions are more numerous and varied, and all those now appearing for the first time, have peculiarly noble offices. Such are the eye and the ear, with their respective powers of sight and hearing. The latter kind are distinguished by physiologists as the “ Animal” functions; those which are common to both classes of beings, are called the “Vegetative.”* In man, for example, the Vegetative functions are feeding, digestion, respiration, &c., (all of which he has in common with the plant), their central organ being the heart, or rather the heart and lungs cooperatively ; while the animal functions are those which depend upon the brain. In animals, the organs of the Vegetative functions are generally single, as the heart, the stomach, and the liver; those, on the other hand, of the * Some authors call the Vegetative functions the ^^OrganieJ^ The former is by far the better name, being definite and strict in its apjilication, whereas Organic’^ properly denotes both classes of functions. The latter is the sense invariably intended in the present volume. ANIMAL AND VEGETATIVE FUNCTIONS. 47 Animal functions, are for the most part arranged in pairs ; that is, they are double and correspondent, as in tne two eyes and two ears ; or they have two symmetrical halves, parallel with the mesian line of the body, as in the nose, the spinal marrow, and the tongue. The functions of the Vege- tative organs continue uninterruptedly; the blood, for in- stance, is in continual circulation; those of the Animal organs are subject to interruptions. Still it is everywhere the same life, essentially, which is played forth. The higher and lower presentations come wholly of the peculiar offices, and thence of the capability of the recipient organism to disclose it. The lowest degree of expression is in the sim- plest forms of vegetables, such as the microscopic fungi, known as moulds and mildew ; the highest is in the material body of man. Between these are innumerable intermediate degrees, all referable, however, either to vegetable, or to animal life. In the Vegetable, by reason of its less noble destiny, the operation of life is seen merely in the produc- tion of a determinate frame-work of roots, stems, leaves, and flowers, and the maintenance of these in a state of self- nutritive and reproductive activity. In the Animal, it pro- duces analogues of all the organs that the vegetable pos- sesses, after a more elaborate mode, and superadds to them. Nervous matter. This gives sensation, and the power of voluntary motion, and introduces the creature into social communication with the objects around it, such as to the vegetable is utterly unknown. We shall see, further on, how such widely parted extremes are yet consistent with singleness of idea ; also, in considering Discrete degrees and the Chain of Nature, how along with the most beautiful serial progression and development, there is absolute separa- tion and distinctiveness, both as regards species, and the great aggregates we call the Kingdoms of nature. 21. To the support of Organic life are needed Food, Air, 48 FOOD, AIR, AND THE VITAL STIMULI. and the great dynamic substance or substances known as Heat, Light, and Electricity.* The latter are what authors call the “vital stimuli,’’ their operation, either singly or combined, having long been recognized as the first essential to the manifestation of vital phenomena. Properly speak- ing, the whole suite should be included under the name of Food, seeing that they equally contribute to the stability of the organism. They are not merely stimuliy or excitants of vital action ; definite quantities of them must be introduced into the organism, of which they are the imponderable ali- ment, as food commonly so called, is the ponderable. This is strikingly exemplified in the history of the Cerealia, or Corn-plants, to which a long summer or a short one makes no difference, provided they receive the same aggregate amount of heat and light. Every one knows that if the supply of natural, wholesome aliment be reduced below a certain level, there is alike in plants and animals emaciation and loss of vigor ; and that if totally deprived of food, they speedily starve to death. Debarred from regular supplies of Air, Light, Electricity, &c., though the supply of food may be adequate, plants no less than animals, suffer as severely as in the former case. Respiration, the circulation of the blood, the flow of the sap, digestion, assimilation, all stand in need of their united and complementary service. Equally and as absolutely essential is it to the very genesis of the organism, whether we take the child in the womb of its mother, or its counterpart, the embryo seed in the pistil of the flower, excepting, in the former case, the immediate presence and operation of atmospheric air. We shall first * To this list will perhaps have to be added odyhy the extraordi- nary agent to which attention is invited by Reichenbach. See his Kescarches on Magnetism, Electricity, &c., translated by Dr. Gregory, 1850. INFLUENCE OF LIGHT UPON PLANTS. 49 consider the “Vital Stimuli f secondly, Food ; and thirdly, the Atmosphere, in relation to life. This will prepare us to understand the proximate causes and nature of Death ; which will lead in turn to the consideration of the great compensating laws of Renewal, and to the curious mysteries of the diversity in the leases or specific terms of life. 22. The most striking illustrations of the importance of Light to the play of life are furnished by the Vegetable kingdom. Secluded from the solar light, plants, if they do not soon die, become wan, feeble, and sickly. What few leaves and shoots may be painfully put forth, are pale-yellow instead of green; and the ordinarily firm and solid stem be- comes watery and semi-translucent. If there be an effort made to produce flowers and seeds, that is, to become parents, after self-preservation, the foremost, though it may be un- conscious, desire of all living things, it is but to fail miserably. The qualities of a plant are no less weakened by want of light than its constitution is. The acrid become bland, the dele- terious innocuous. In gardens and orchards, flowers and fruits accidentally shaded by dense foliage, fail to acquire their proper tint; while of the full sunlight come all the glow and brilliance of the blossom, the purple hue of the peach, the rosy one of the apple. Who has not observed the long- ing and beautiful affection with which plants kept in par- lors turn themselves towards the window; and how the large, broad leaves of the geranium will even press their bosoms to the glass ? The sunflower, the heliotrope,* the * The delicious, vanilla-scented, lilac flower, which now bears the name of Heliotrope is in no way specially deserving of it. Neither is the great golden Sunflower of our autumn gardens, which is so called, not, as often thought, because of remarkable sensitiveness to solar attraction, but because of its vast circular disk and yellow rays. 5 C 50 INFLUENCE OF LIGHT UPON PLANTS. turnsole, the salsafy, are celebrated for keeping their faces always fixed on glorious Apollo.” It would be much more difiicult to find a plant which does not turn towards the sun, though its movement might be slower than is fabled. While these confess the sweetness and the potency of the solar pre- sence, that sullen troglodyte, the Lathroea squamaria, or tooth- wort, of our woods, where the botanist obtains it only by excavating among earth and dead leaves, shows in its ske- leton-like configuration and cadaverous hue, that life in the dark is but a compromise with death. When the trees and shrubs, beneath the shade of which it usually secretes itself, are cut away, so as to expose the plant to the full action of the light, like a morose and unsocial man made to laugh against his will, it enlivens into a beautiful pink purple. Superabundance of light, on the other hand, elicits the most beautiful displays, both as to perfection of form, and height of color. Tschudi, in his picturesque Sketches of Nature in the Alps,” tells us that the flowers there have a wonder- fully vivid coloring. The most brilliant blues and reds, with a rich brown, shading to black, are observable amidst the white and yellow flowers of the lower districts, both kinds assuming in the higher regions a yet more pure and dazzling hue.” A similar richness of coloring is reported of the vegetation of Polar countries, where the hues not only become more fiery, but undergo a complete alteration under the influence of the constant summer light and the rays of the midnight sun, white and violet being often deepened into glowing purple. This happens not alone with the flowers. Within the arctic circle, the lichens and mosses shine in hues of gold and purple quite unknown to them in lower latitudes. The balsamic fragrance of the Alpine plants, likewise caused by the brilliant light, is, according to Tschudi, no less remark- able and characteristic. From the auricula down to the violet- INFLUENCE OF LIGHT UPON ANIMALS. 51 scented moss (Byssus eolithes), this strong aromatic property is widely prevalent, and far more so in the high Alps than in the lowlands. The strict physiological reason of the ill development of plants when deprived of the proper amount of light, at least of all green plants, is that plant-life, as re- gards personal nutrition, is spent in the decomposition of carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, from the proceeds of which are manufactured the tissues and their contents ; such decomposition bearing a constant ratio, cceteris jparihus, to the amount of light enjoyed. To certain kinds of sea-weeds, it is proper to remark, light seems, by a curious exception, to be unfriendly and distasteful. This is the case with many of the Ehodospermese, as Delesseria sanguinea, D. ruscifolia, and Khodomenia laciniata, which instead of growing in the open parts of the sea-coast, select obscure hollows, shadowed by overhanging clilFs, and in such dark spots alone attain their highest beauty. Some of this tribe will not grow at all in shallow water, or where there is a full stream of solar light ; and such as can bear to be so placed, usually show the incongeniality of their location by degeneracy of form and loss of brilliancy of tint. Delesseria sanguinea, made mock of in a glass vase, speedily loses its lovely crimson, and becomes a mere white membrane. Fondness of seclu- sion from the full sunlight is remarkable also in many ferns. Under the shade of trees, or upon sheltered hedgebanks, they alone reach their maximum of luxuriance. 23. The value and importance of light to Animal life, though the immediate connection is not so obvious, all expe- rience shows it impossible to over-estimate. There is some- thing more than a metaphor in speaking of the light of life.’’ Light, in poetic language, is life. When Iphigenia in Euripides is reconciling herself to the death so happily averted, she exclaims, [loc, (pcXov (pdo(;^ ‘‘ Farewell, 52 IMPORTANCE OF LIGHT TO HUMAN HEALTH. beloved Light!”* Digestion, assimilation, circulation, the functions also of the brain and of the nerves, proceed in a more orderly and agreeable manner when we exclude our- selves as little as possible from the light of heaven. No dwellings are so pleasant, because so healthful, as those which have a southerly aspect : people who live in houses looking chiefly to the North and East, sufler seriously, if not sensibly, from the imperfect sunning of the air ; the unkind- liness of the aspect imparts itself to the occupants ; that the heart should look southwards, our windows should do so. No one can say how much sickness and debility, how much ill-temper and moroseness are not owing to self-imprisonment in dark streets, and dull counting-houses, and back parlors, into which a sunbeam never enters : ‘‘ Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” School-rooms, most of all, should be on the sunny side of the house ; no sensible school-master ever places them anywhere else. The curious exception to love of light which occurs in the pink sea-weeds, again occurs in marine Animal life. Almost all the animals which inhabit the sea-side are more numerous under the shelter of rocks than where the coast is open. Compared with such localities, shadowless sands and beaches are untenanted. The colours also of marine animals, like those of the algae, are often brighter wEen they dwell in comparative shade, as well exemplified in the prawn. It is only in the gloom of deep holes and rocky pools that the fine zebra-like hues of this pretty crea- ture become fully developed. Fishes, especially those of the sea, are well known to be fonder of night than of day, probably because of darkness being more congenial ; and * Tpliigenia in Aiilis, 1519. See in reference to the passage. The Ilieroglypliica of Picriiis Valerianus, p. 490, de Lucerna; and vari- ous citations from the Latin poets in Alciati’s Embleniata, p. 720. AGENCY OF HEAT. 53 the same is probably the reason of many animals being most active in the winter. Here again we have a parallel with the vegetable world ; it is when the days are darkest and shortest that the Christmas-rose expands its flowers. Sun- shine has a wonderful influence even upon external form, as we might anticipate indeed from the improvement it causes in plants. Humboldt ascribes the frequency of deformity among certain nations which clothe but scantily, more to the free action of light upon their bodies, than to any peculia- rities in mode of life. Those exquisite shapes which Art has immortalized in marble, doubtless owed not a little to the full and free exposure of the body to the light and air, so agreeable in the fine climate of ancient Greece. 24. We may but read of what Light does for life, but we feel what is the agency of Heat. Reduce the supply of heat, and development is checked. Remove it wholly, and the organism, whether animal or vegetable, (except in some few very low forms,) is frozen to death. Hence the instinct- ive avoidance of the impending evil by the tender, migratory birds and animals; and the behaviour and condition during winter of the hybernating species. It is principally through lack of heat that the frigid zones are nearly bare of vegeta- tion ; and that through the increase of temperature, as the equator is approached, the eye is delighted at every step, by a richer luxuriance. “To the natives of the north,” says Humboldt, “many vegetable forms, including more espe- cially the most beautiful productions of the earth, (palms, tree-ferns, bananas, arborescent grasses, and delicately- branched mimosas,) remain for ever unknown; for the puny plants pent up in our hot-houses, give but a faint idea of the majestic vegetation of the tropics.” The operation of heat in the earliest periods of organic existence, is alone sufficient to indicate how important this agent is to life. In the incubation of birds, the warmth communicated by the 5 * 54 AGENCY OF ELECTRICITY. parent to the egg, during her long and patient fidelity to her nest, elicits that response on the part of the germ, which leads on to the hatching of the chick. The seeds of plants stand in similar need of the solar warmth in order to germi- nate, and acknowledge it as promptly. So, indeed, with the gestation of viviparous animals, as woman. The embryo, embedded in the womb, amplifies into a fully-formed child, not more through the contributions made to its substance by the nutrient apparatus provided for the purpose, than through the agency of the genial warmth which flows into it from all sides, and without which neither limbs nor organs could be moulded. 25. What may be the precise way in which Electricity assists in maintaining life, is as yet a profound secret. From what has been observed, however, there cannot be a doubt that it performs a part fully as energetic as either light or heat, and this whether we take animals or plants. As re- gards the former, its peculiar relation appears to lie with “nerve-force.” Nerve-force is excitable by electricity, and electricity may be produced by the exercise of nerve-force, as exemplified in those remarkable creatures, the Torpedo and the Gymnotus. Our personal sensations, which are an unfailing index to the truth in such inquiries, tell us how exhilarating is an atmosphere well charged with this magical element, and how life languishes when it is deficient or ren- dered inoperative. Plants receive a corresponding benefit. The evolution of new tissue is greatly accelerated by a plen- tiful supply of the electric fluid, manifesting itself in rapid and lively growth. For particulars respecting its agency, also concerning the relation of heat, light, and electricity, generally, to Organic life, we must refer the reader to trea- tises the scope of which allows more room than can be afibrded here; giving what space remains to a notice of the grand discovery, so ably set forth by Mr. Grove, that in- DOCTRINE OF THE ^^CORRELATION OF FORCES.” 55 stead of being three things, Light, Heat, and Electricity are only one, variously set forth, and mutually convertible, the doctrine in short of the “ Correlation of the Physical F orces.” It is important briefly to consider this doctrine, seeing that it provides, in the estimation of some of the most eminent physiologists of our day, a solution of the great problem of organic life. “That Light and Heat,” says Carpenter, “be- come transformed into Vital Force, is shown by the same kind of evidence that we possess of the conversion of Heat into Electricity by acting on a certain combination of metals ; of Electricity into Magnetism by being passed round a bar of iron ; and of Heat and Electricity into motion when the self-repulsive action separates the particles from each other. For just as Heat, Light, Chemical affinity, &c., are transformed into vital force, so is vital force capable of manifesting itself in the production of Light, Heat, Elec- tricity, Chemical affinity, or mechanical motion; thus com- pleting the proof of that mutual relationship or ‘ correlation’ which has been shown to exist among the physical and chemical forces themselves.”* That without heat and elec- tricity, life cannot for one instant be sustained, is indispu- table; and that without them, the changes and phenomena which disclose its presence can never occur. Equally true is it that (as specially observable in the Cerealia above- mentioned) there is a definite relation between the degree of vital activity and the amount of heat, light, &c. supplied to the organism. Curious and truly wonderful too is the con- cord between these “ forces” and the vital energy, as regards their restorative powers; the warmth of the hand restores tlie perishing fly, and the voltaic current reanimates the half-drowned man. To say, however, that they are trans- Principles of Human Physiology,^’ p. 123. 1853. See also the “Projet d’un Essai sur la Vitalite,” of Andral, p. 35. Paris, 1835. 56 J. J. G. WILKINSON ON CORRELATION. formahle into a spiritual essence — for if life be derived from God, vital force can be nothing else — seems to savor strongly of such a perfect contentedness witli the material as surely does not consist with a pure and devout philosophy. The dependence of life, proximately, upon physical causes, is not questioned; life is no miracle, in the special sense; and it is our plain and bounden duty, as investigators of nature, to attempt to give to this dependence a clear and definite ex- pression. But we are not to talk of ‘Wital force’' as if it were a thing of merely terrestrial origin, heat and electricity sublimed and transmuted. According to this doctrine of correlation”* (i. e,, of the physical forces with vital force,) observes an author of no common sagacity, ‘‘according to this doctrine, heat has only to pass through a cell-germ to be converted into vitality. This doctrine ends, therefore, in fire-worshipping; for it makes the light and heat of the ma- terial sun, the fountains of the force of organization; and deems that these pass through vegetables, and become vege- table life; through animals, and become animal life; through brains, and become mind, and so forth. Therefore, a fine day, poured into its vessel, man, becomes transmogrified into virtues; dark nights are converted into felonies; dull November days into suicides; and hot suns into love. This is materialism with spiritualism in its pocket. There is no convertibility of forces between life and nature; there are no cells by which heat can be filtered into vitality.”f * On the general subject of the Correlation of Forces see Mr. Grove’s admirable work bearing that title, and an excellent article on the “Pbasis of Force” in the National Review for April, 1857. f “The Unman Body, and its connection with Man,” by J. J, Garth Wilkinson, p. 389. 1851. CHAPTER IV. FOOD. 26. Wherever provided with instruments of action, life requires for its maintenance unbroken supplies of food. No organized being can dispense with food altogether, though some, from peculiarity of constitution — as reptiles, the car- nivorous mammalia, certain hybernating creatures, and trees — can fast for surprisingly long periods. Plants feed in order that they may enlarge their fabric, and renew, pe- riodically, their foliage and blossoms ; animals feed because the exercise of their various organs is attended by decompo- sition of their very substance, which consequently needs to be repaired to the same extent. While the lungs, the heart, the liver, the muscles, the nerves, perform faithfully the se- veral duties assigned to or demanded of them, it is at the expense of the material they are composed of ; and were the loss not speedily compensated, life would soon be necessi- tated to depart, as it actually does in cases of starvation. For life, in animals, is not merely living — it consists not alone in the activity and vigorous exercise of the bodily or- gans. In order to its energetic playing forth, there is needed a nice balance and alternation of death and renewal in every tissue concerned in the vital processes ; and only where exchange of new for old is regularly and actively go- w ing on, can life be truly said to reign. We cannot live, in a word, as to our total organism, unless we are always dy- ing as to our atoms ; nor is there an instant in which death c 57 58 MOLECULAR DEATH AND RENEWAL OF THE BODY. is not somewhere taking place. Every effort and every movement kills some portion of the muscles employed ; every thought, even, involves the death of some particle of the brain. As fast as devitalized, the atoms are cast out — some through the lungs, others through the skin, &c. ; every pore and passage of the body supplying means of exit. So general and incessant is the decomposition, and along with it the rebuilding, that a few weeks probably suffice for the dissolving and reconstruction of the entire structure; cer- tainly it does not occupy many years. In the course of a life-time, “ every individual wears out many suits of bodies, as he does many suits of clothes ; the successive structures which we occupy bear the same name, and exhibit the same external aspect; but our frames of to-day are no more iden- tical with the frames of our early youth than with those of our progenitors.’’ In this wonderful flux and replacement of the atoms of the body, quite as much consists its admira- ble adaptation to the purposes of life as in its exquisite me- chanism and variety of organs. It is so perfect an instru- ment of life, because composed of millions of delicate pieces, so slenderly cohering that any one of them can be discarded and replaced without difficulty. Hence, in the aged and the diseased, in whom the tissues are hardened and conso- lidated, in whom the renewal is slow, difficult, and irregular, we see life proportionately feeble ; where, upon the other hand, they are soft and delicate, and renewal rapid, it is in the same ratio strong and beautiful. Historically viewed, the periodical renewal, of the human body at least, is one of the most venerable ideas in physiology. Long before Cuvier’s fine comparison of the human fabric to a whirl- pool, and Leibnitz’s simile of a river, it had been likened to the famous ship of Theseus, which was always the same ship, though from being so often repaired, not a single piece of the original was left. Plato adverts to it both in the Ban- PROXIMATE OBJECT OF FOOD. 59 quet and in the Timseus. Mark, for future use, the grand and inevitable sequence that the essentiality of the body is certainly not to be looked for in the matter of which it is built, but must needs consist in a noble, imponderable, in- visible something, which the changing physical frame sim- ply encloses and overlies. Mark, too, and alike for future use, the fine analogy between the death and renewal of the constituent elements of the individual liuman being, and the death and renewal of the atoms of the human race. 27. The use of food, accordingly, is to meet this incessant waste. A corresponding and continuous importation of new material from without, available for the restoration of the several organs, becomes, in consequence of the waste, rigor- orously indispensable. That such new material may be pro- cured, the loss of the old is signalled in the vehement longing we call hunger : this leads to consumption of it in a crude form ; digestion and assimilation then come into play, promptly turning what is consumed into blood, or liquid, circulating flesh, and by the fixation of this wherever wear and tear have been undergone, the process of reparation is completed. Incessantly coursing through the body, the blood, as it ar- rives at the various parts, gives itself up to the genius loei : where muscle is out of repair, muscle is renewed from it ; where bone is wanted, bone is renewed; cartilage, brain, nerves, alike suck from this noble fluid their restoration, as originally, from the same beautiful and overflowing cornu- copia, their birth and substance. The proximate object of food is thus to nourish the blood.* It is because the blood hungers and thirsts, that we feel impelled to eat and drink ; * That the formation of blood is the use of food, appears to have been a very early conclusion. ^^The gods,’’ says Homer, “neither eat food nor drink the purple wine, wherefore they are bloodless .’’ — Iliad, V. 341 # 60 TWOFOLD USE OF FOOD. the hunger of the stomach is only the voice with which it clamors. Itself the most wonderful substance in nature — for the sake of the blood, everything else in nature subsists. Light, heat, and electricity, animals, plants, and minerals, all in some way subsidize and minister to it. Man is man only by virtue of his blood, and nature is chieliy admirable as supplying its ingredients. Wherever in the human body there is most blood, there is greatest vital energy, and vice versa; and in exact proportion to the decline from the standard quantity and quality required in it, is the depar- ture from the body of health and vigor. 28. Besides integrity of substance, a certain degree of temperature must be kept up in the body, otherwise the muscles would lose their power of contracting, and the nerves their power of conveying impressions to and from the brain. This is partly provided for by the ingress of heat from without, as noticed in the preceding chapter; partly by arrangements for the evolution of heat chemically, within, — such arrangements, like those for rebuilding, being immediately dependent upon supplies of proper food. Hence in the raw material of nutrition, along with the substance suitable for masonry, must be included substance that shall be serviceable as fuel ; and organic chemistry seems to prove that it is precisely such material which we instinctively select for our diet. Human food, according to the researches of Liebig, is always either nitrogenous or carbonaceous, or both, — the first element serving to furnish fiesh, the second the means of warmth ; and it would further appear that it is for the sake of procuring these two in sufficient quantity and proportion, that we almost invariably compound our food, mixing vegetables with meat, butter with bread. What seems to be luxury, is simple instinct, acting through the palate. During the period of growth, or in childhood and adolescence, an important additional source of demand for COMPOSITION OF FOOD. 61 food is the increase which the various tissues are then under- going. The sphere of the activity of the constructive powers exceeds the actual dimensions of the body, which extends itself, under their impulse, in every direction; and induces, while thus enlarging, a corresponding voraciousness. The demand for food during this period is sill further promoted by the circumstance of the tissues having not acquired the degree of consolidation which they hold in adults, and being therefore more readily susceptible of decomposition. Con- sidered as a local affection of the body, hunger is referable to the nerves of the stomach. No affection is more inti- mately connected with the nervous system, or more power- fully influenced by nervous states and emotions. Sudden grief, anger, and fright, will often remove it instantaneously, and even change it into loathing. In plants, it is important to observe, there is no decay of the ultimate or elementary tissues, such as occurs in animal organisms, and which it the design of the nutritive processes in animals to compen- sate. Instead of this, in the vegetable all is growth, till the organ which the growth produces, having fulfilled its destiny, ceases to act, and dies bodily. In plants, therefore, there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as nutrition, the true idea of this process being, as above described, reparation of molecular waste. 29. The form, sources, and composition of the food of the two great classes of organized beings, involve varied and most interesting considerations. Here it is unnecessary to do more than indicate a few leading ideas upon the several themes. The composition of food must necessarily always be the same as that of the organism which lives upon it, — that is, the crude material of food must needs contain ingredients convertible respectively into blood and sap, and thence into flesh, in its various forms, also bones, and in the plant what are called the vegetable tissues. If such ingredients be not 6 62 FORM OF FOOD. present, the material cannot be called food. It follows that those foods will be the most serviceable and nutritious which contain in a given bulk the largest proportion of parts capa- ble of being easily assimilated into the body of the eater. More or less nutritious as it may be, the action of the diges- tive organs always separates from our food precisely the same elements. Eat what we will, the composition of the body does not alter, — explaining the celebrated aphorism of Hippocrates, that there is only one food, though there exist many /orms of food. With all the higher animals, and pro- bably throughout the entire range of animal life, it is pre- cisely the same. 30. Next as to the form of food. The more complex the structure of the organism, and the higher its powers, the more complex must be the aliment on which it lives, and also the more varied in its shape. Man needs a more com- plex food than the brute races do, and animals in general a more complex one than serves for vegetables. Animals, again, need both solid and liquid aliment, while vegetables take the whole of their food in fluid forms. Although thirst is a violent desire, drink, however, appears by no means indispensable to animal life; for several kinds of creatures, as quails, parrots, and mice, do not drink at all; and individuals of our own species have lived in perfect health and strength, scarcely ever tasting liquids. The Sloth, Waterton tells us, ^Heeds on leaves, and scarcely ever drinks.’’ The doctrine, originally started by Mirbel, that animals live upon organic matter only, and vegetables upon morganic, and which is often thought to carry with it a valid distinction between them, is defective; plants, though they absorl) the greater part of their nutriment from the atmos- phere, and though tliey take up solutions of many purely iriiueral matters, also consume dead organic substances; the diflerence between their habits in this respect, compared with FOOD OF PLANTS. 63 the custom of animals, being that the latter eat those sub- stances in the bulk, while plants need that they shall lirst oe disintegrated and dissolved, — that they shall have already un- dergone, in fact, the very process which it is the first office of the animal stomach to effect. Parasites, such as the mistletoe and Orobanche, so far from feeding on purely in- organic substances, or even on dead or decomposing matter, subsist on the living, circulating juices of the trees and plants on which they fix themselves. An exacter distinction is that animals destroy what is actually in possession of life, in order that they may support themselves; while plants, with rare exceptions, are innocent of such deeds. The ex- ceptions occur in the singular plants called fly-catchers; botanically Drosera, and Dionoea, inhabitants of bogs and morasses, the former abundantly in England. Their leaves are so constructed as to entrap midges and other little flies; the juices of whose bodies, or the gases yielded by their decay, appear salutary and agreeable to them. Thus it is, however, that everything in the world gets eaten sometime; the ceaseless activity of nature is conversion of what is low^er into w hat is higher, — above the lowest nature each thing is eaten and eater, end and beginning in succession.” 31. The particular diet, both of animals and of plants, is a subject of inexhaustible interest. That of plants is the leading idea of the new science of ‘‘Agricultural Chemistry.” Doubtless, the mechanical character of the soil has its influ- ence; but it can hardly be from this circumstance alone that we find the golden cistus, the vervain, and many deli- cate grasses in perfection only wdien their roots can shoot in calcareous earth ; that some plants thrive best on sandstone, others upon clay; and that the sea-shore alone is found possessed of the salsola, the sea-convolvulus, and the lovely but formidable Eryngo, the blue touch-me-not of the sand hills. Wheat and other cereals require silex; the oak is 64 FOOD OF ANIMALS. reputed to love a soil with iron in it. Generally speaking, however, there is a great uniformity in the tastes of plants, as proved by their intermixture in the fields. Taking one with another, two substances alone seem to suffice them — water and carbonic acid. Widely different is it with ani- mals. Here almost every species has an especial liking, though all tastes may be classed under some few general heads. Gregarious animals live mostly upon the fruits of the earth ; solitary ones upon the flesh of other animals. Among the latter, or the carnivora, there are feeders on fish, flesh, and fowl respectively; among the herbivorous, some feed on leaves, some on roots, some pick out the seeds, others take the whole plant, the bees love only the honey. This various choice, together with the selection of different species of plants and animals by certain creatures, and the rejection of others, allows of all finding a plentiful supply of what is salutary, and this without interfering with the wants of others. Linmeus tells us, that after a careful course of trials with the domesticated animals, and about five hundred species of the ordinary plants of the fields, the horse was found to eat two hundred and sixty-two, the cow two hun- dred and seventy-six, the sheep three hundred and eighty- seven. To this, says that observant old naturalist, Benjamin Stillingfleet, is to be referred that capital economy which knows that when eight cows have been in a pasture, and can no longer get nourishment, two horses will do very w^ell there for some days ; and when the horses have taken all they care for, four sheep will still find supplies. There are few things more curious in rural life than to watch a cow while grazing, and see how she will push aside the butter- cups. Some animals care only for what is harsh, as the camel, whose greatest relish is an oasis of tough, prickly buslies, such as tlie ass itself would turn away from. Thus consumed, by one animal or other, it follows, that no plant SPECIALITIES OE FOOD. 65 is absolutely uneatable, no plant, indeed, absolutely poison- ous, but only poisonous to particular creatures. Probably there is not a single species of the vegetable kingdom but is eaten, or partly eaten, by a creature appointed to it, how- ever distasteful and even deleterious it may be to others. The horse gives up the water-hemlock to the goat ; the goat leaves the monkshood for the horse ; if man eats of either plant, he dies. Slugs eat that very poisonous toadstool, the Agaricus muscarius ; also the Agaricus phalloides, a species still more terrible from the rapidity of its deadly effect. Though the leaves of the laurel are so obnoxious to insects in general as to be the readiest poison for them with the entomologist, the caterpillar of one kind, the Orgyia antiqua, finds them wholesome. When driven by famine, it would seem, nevertheless, that there are no creatures but what will eat of other kinds of food than they ordinarily select, and which they are fitted for by nature. Spallanzani made a pigeon live on flesh, and an eagle on bread. Animals domesticated by man, and thus leading a semi-artificial life, will, apart from necessity, also curiously change their habits as to food. In some parts of Persia, according to Fraser, “ the cattle have but little pasture ; . . . the chief article of their food is dried fish, which, with pounded date-stones, is all they get to eat for a considerable portion of the year.” Every one is acquainted with the extraordinary eating powers of insects. With these creatures, eating seems ordained less for the preservation of the individual than for the destruction of effete organic matter, a fact peculiarly observable in the Diptera and the Coleoptera. Some kinds seem created chiefly to overpower other insects. Were it not for the carnivorous lady-birds, the fat, green, vegetarian aphides which infest the stalks of so many of our sweetest flowers, would be a thousand times more troublesome. 66 FOOD OF MAN. ‘‘ Exactly what browsing flocks and herds of deer are to the quadruped of prey, the tribes of aphides are to the lady- birds, and some two or three allies of the Coccinella race ; save for which destroyers, not a lover of sweet posies could gather a rose or a honeysuckle undefiled.” To the execution of these offices by the insect tribe, the almost incalculable number of their species, the extremely rapid multiplication of many, the unparalleled voracity of others, and the quick- ness with which digestion is carried in their very short intes- tinal canal, all tend to contribute. Fislies, and marine animals in general, perform the same offices for the sea that insects subserve upon the land ; incessantly destroying and devouring, they contribute immensely to the preservation of its purity; some, as crabs, consuming indiscriminately both dead and living prey, and in their cruel and greedy habits reiterating those of the hyena and the wolf The stomachs of these creatures, like those of many fishes, not infrequently contain abundance of beautiful little shells, principally microscopic, gathered up during their travels in the country of the mermaids. 32. Man, in a limited sense, is omnivorous; not absolutely; he cannot eat many things which to inferior creatures are pleasant, as bones, and the leaves of trees. Whether, as to first intent, he is an herbivorous or a carnivorous animal, is a question only for enthusiasts. His anatomical structure supplies an equal argument for either side, Helvetius and others deeming that it proves a carnivorous nature; and the modern school of vegetarians, an herbivorous one. Kous- seau ingeniously urges, in support of the latter view, that woman is a uniparous animal, and provided with no more than two breasts, circumstances predominant among the females of the brute herbivora; while in the females of the brute carnivora, the number is in both cases considerably FOOD OF MAN. 67 higher.* Man is not intended to live upon either kind of food by itself. Inhabiting every variety of climate, he would have been ill provided for, if so restricted ; as it is, he can dwell in countries which afford only animal food, or only vegetable food. There are nations who have little within reach besides dates, yams, and the ivory-nut; in the extreme north, there is nothing to be had but flesh. Pro- bably enough, the number of human beings who subsist on fruits and farinaceous roots is preponderant. Though ani- mal food is so largely consumed in cold countries, the inha- bitants of the sunnier and warmer parts of the earth derive their chief nourishment from trees and plants. This, how- ever, is no proof of its superior adaptedness; there can be little doubt that human aliments prepared from the flesh of animals, are, generally speaking, both more nutritious and more digestible. The herbivorous creatures killed for the table having already converted the nutrient substances of the vegetable world into animal matter, our own digestive organs are saved the labor. The cow, the sheep, the deer, are natural bridges between the grass of the fleld and the human body. 33. Not less interesting than the variety of the food of different animals is the variety in the organs by which are accomplished the two preliminary processes of nutrition, or prehension and mastication. So rigidly, moreover, are they modeled according to the character of the food upon which the animal subsists, that we may infer what it eats by merely observing its extremities and mouth. Feet, for instance, of the kind called hoofs, are incapable of seizing living prey; so that all creatures which possess them are necessarily her- bivorous. Indeed, there is scarcely an organ of the animal * Sar I’ Origine de Vinegalite parmi les hommes. Note G. (EuvreSj tome iii., i)p. 193 — 195, very curious and amusing. 68 HUNGER THE SOURCE OF MORAL ORDER. frame but servos a more or less direct purpose in regard to feeding, the wing, tlie fin, the claw, all are bestowed towards this end; so likewise is that amazing quickness of the senses which makes the sight, the hearing, the smell of many pre- daceous quadrupeds and birds so vastly superior to that of man.* The organ peculiarly identified with the feeding of animals, and which is commonly allowed to be a distinctive characteristic when compared with plants, namely, the sto- mach, is given them because of their powers of locomotion. Vegetables, fixed in the soil, and feeding by their leaves and spongioles on the matter which envelopes them, do not require a special organ of digestion, into which food can be received in bulk. Animals, on the other hand, are obliged to take their food at intervals not so much suited to their wants as to their opportunities of obtaining it. Between the feeding of brutes and mankind, the only essential differ- ence is, that while the former consume their food in the state in which it is yielded by nature, man, even in his rudest condition, subjects it, for the most part, to some kind of cookery. Man, it has been said humorously, is ‘‘the cooking animal.’’ 34. The mere knowledge of the waste of the tissues, and of the organic need for food thence arising, would not be a sufficient provocative to eat. Absorbed in darling occupa- tions, many men would never think of taking food, did not hunger at last impel them. As a physical agent, hunger is thus of an importance impossible to over-rate: and its moral value is necessarily commensurate. It is the chief source of social order ; for if mankind could do without food, they would be out of reach of rule and control, and necessary * See for illustration in detail, Sir T. C. Morgaifs “Sketches of the Philosophy of Jjife,” chap, iii., “The Comhination of Organs and Functions.” LEGITIMATE ENJOYMENT OF FOOD. 69 subordination would not exist. ‘‘ Hunger/’ says Bray, ‘‘ lias been the chief source of man’s progression, seeing that it constitutes, principally, that necessity which is the mother of invention. We might, perhaps, have been made to do without eating and drinking ; but instead of this being a bless- ing, we should thereby be destitute of the most potent stimu- lus of the mental powers, upon the action of which powers happiness wholly depends. The privilege of requiring no bread would not be equal to the advantages man derives from the law of nature which compels him to earn it by the sweat of his brow ; for nature has imposed no more labor than is pleasurable and necessary to health — unjust laws and regulations with respect to the distribution of the pro- ducts of human labor, compel the majority to toil more than is consistent with health and happiness — but more fatal than unjust laws would it be to the well-being of soci- ety, if all necessity for exertion were abrogated.* No one need think ill of eating, or of any of its associations, except the abuse. Good, substantial, wholesome food, properly cooked, and neatly served up, is one of the highest proofs and privileges of civilization ; it is a criterion of every well- conducted household, and of every true and clever wife ; while the legitimate enjoyment of it is one of the most honest and innocent of pleasures. All sensible and good- natured people are fond of eating ; and one of the pleasant- est things it is possible either to feel in one’s self or to wit- ness in another, is a healthy and natural readiness for the bounties of the table. To satisfy nature without surfeiting it, is one of the foremost of the “ good works ” we are re- quired to enact. Thankful enjoyment of our daily bread is no small part of Christianity. If ‘‘lying lips” ‘‘be an abomination to the Lord,” so is the ingratitude of asceti- * “Philosophy of Necessity.^’ Vol. i. 70 ENJOYMENT OF FOOD A DUTY. cism ; and infinitely more so, the dyspepsia wliicli di.sal)les the intemperate from the great, universal duty of all man- kind to have a good aj)2^etite. While all possible forms of intemperanee and excess are denounced both in the Old Testament and New, the substantial viands gathered from the fields and the vineyards, the firstlings of the flocks and herds, the fig, the olive, and the pure juice of the grape, are promised, over and over again, as the rewards of virtuous toil, and catalogued with the blessings to be received in this lower world. ‘‘ I have no patience,’’ says a wise wrTtcr, with those who pretend not to care for tlieir dinner, or the ludicrous assumption that ‘spiritual’ negations imply su- perior souls. A man who is careless about his dinner, is generally one of flaccid body and feeble mind. As old Samuel Johnson authoritatively said — ‘ Sir, a man seldom thinks of anything with more earnestness than he thinks of his dinner; and if he cannot get that well dressed, he may he suspected of inaccuracy in other things.^ When a man is not basely insensible to hunger of soul, the keen intellec- tual voracities and emotional desires, he is all the healthier, all the stronger, all the better for a noble capacity for food — a capacity which becomes noble when it ministers to a fine, and not merely to a gluttonous nature.”* Even a plain diet is but half-good. It cannot be doubted that, on the whole, refinement, in board as well as lodging — being a fruit of intelligence — is favorable alike to health and lon- gevity. There are advantages we little think of in those culinary ingenuities which, not significantly adding to the cost of our food — in fact, reducing it, by subserving to di- minish waste — at once modify and neutralize ill flavours, and so greatly augment its i)leasant sapidity. The pleasure of meal-times is one of the prerogatives of human nature. * “ Sea-side Studies.’^ Blackwood’s Magazine^ September, 1856. EVILS OF INSUFFICIENT FOOD. 71 The lower mammalia — the only other animals who appear to enjoy the flavour of their food — ^^are insensible to Jiaut-gout Granivorous birds and most kind of fislies not only have cartilaginous tongues, which prevent them from tasting, but swallow their food whole, guided probably to the choice of it by sight rather than taste or smell. Fishes seem to de- pend entirely on the eye, if we may judge from the readiness with which they swallow artificial bait. Man’s palate, in short, was not given him for nothing ; but to procure pleasures for him commensurate with his patrician rank. 35. The benefits which accrue to the body from supplying it with a sufficiency of wholesome food, show in the strongest light the evils which result from msufficiency. Disease is one of the first. Many diseases are induced by it, many are aggravated. Sanitary movements having reference to the poor, cannot possibly effect any lasting amelioration of their condition so long as they go short of proper aliment. It is worthy the attention of philanthropists, that epidemic and pestilential diseases in particular are far more widely fatal in their ravages among the ill-fed than among the well-fed. Certainly there are several such diseases which assail rich and poor alike — small-pox, measles, and scarlet- fever, for example ; but even these are much more destruc- tive when they attack persons who have been forced to sub- sist on poor or too scanty nourishment. Legislators, no less than the charitable, may find in this fact, a vitally import- ant principle of action. Insufficiency overprolonged in- duces the slow and miserable death of starvation, and no physical calamity can be conceived of as more terrible. Yet starvation — actual, killing starvation — is perhaps the least part of the injury to the human race which comes of privation of needful sustenance. Actual death from hun- ger is only an occasional thing. The evils which accrue from the debilitating effects of customary stint, life still drag- 72 EFFECTS OF A STARVING DIETARY. ging on, are incalculably more extended and severe. Even the physical disease which tliey engender is a sliglit evil compared with the impeded mental action which must needs follow. A miserable, starving dietary, wliile it weakens the body, half-paralyzes the soul, and not seldom leads direct to insanity itself. When we remember how entirely the brain depends for its nourisliment uj)on the blood, and that if tliis sovereign pabulum of life and nervous energy be either di- minished in quantity or deteriorated in quality, no organ of the body can possibly work well, how easy it is to see that between insufficient, innutritious diet, and prostration of mind, there is little less than an inevitable connection. Every man has experienced the feeling of debility which at- tends hunger but a little longer unsatisfied than usual, and how swift and lively is the revival of every function of the mind as well as body which follows its proper gratification. The difficulty of awakening the intelligence of a poorly-fed child compared with that of the well-nourished one, is known to every observant teacher in town Sunday-schools. Intellectual productions which are born, not as literature should always and only be, of the soul’s going to it as the hart to the water-brooks, but of the howling of the dogs of hunger, betray no less plainly their miserable origin. Think- ing, like acting, requires a good substratum of physical nou- rishment. Genius, though it has sometimes turned to vege- tarianism, is rarely found adhering to it; all its greatest works have been achieved on a basis of generous diet. This is not all. Where the body is debilitated by hunger, the affections also are necessarily dull, and little excitable to anything better than sensualities. Any man who has been compelled to undergo the hardships of fasting, whether by poverty, or the exigencies of travel in remote places, knows the gradual inroad of cross-grained views, indolence, and recklessness on an empty stomach. The crowning and CHRISTIANITY BEGINS WITH PHYSICAL SUCCOR. 73 deadly evil which comes of insufficient nourishment is, ac- cordingly, the vitiation of man’s moral nature ; and what a lesson is there in this for the Home Missionaries of Christia- nity and their patrons ! It is no less vain than aggravating to preach faith and loving-kindness where father and mother and children lie huddled together in the pains and apathy of hunger. To the starving, religion may well appear folly and hypocrisy ; nor is it any marvel that it should fail to interest them. So long as the gospel is proffered without its proper preface of ministry to man’s physical necessities, the poor must not only be expected to decline it, but they are not altogether unjustified in so doing, for God requires no man to take sermons and benedictions as a substitute for the bread which the body needs. Every one knows how unamiable even the best-fed are liable to become if kept too long waiting for their meals — how inaccessible they are at such times to appeals which after dinner meet most gra- cious response.* Is it surprising, then, that religious truth should find more indifference than welcome among the hun- gry and half-nourished ? It is difficult for a famished man to believe that there is a Father in heaven till he feels that he has brothers on earth. If there be one farce more wretched than another, it is the building a “Kagged Church” and holding ‘‘special religious services” as the first thing indispensable to the bettering the condition of the poor.f * Voltaire knew this well when he told place-seekers — “II faut toujours prendre mollia fandi tempora. II y a une grande analogie entre les intestines et nos passions, notre maniere de penser, notre conduite.^' f See for illustrative details on the general subject, “An Inquiry into the Morbid Effects of Deficiency of Food, chiefly with reference to their occurrence among the Destitute Poor.” By R B. Howard, M. D. London and Manchester, 1839. 7 I) 74 EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF EXCESS. 86. Too much food is as bad as too little. To sacrifice to the stomach that nervous energy which ought to be devoted to the brain, the organ of our most ennobling and most pleasurable faculties, is, in fact, so far as regards the reten- tion of genuine manliness, little better than to commit sui- cide outright. Disease, though probably a third part of all that there is in the world is attributable to this cause, is, as in a former instance, the least of the evils that have to be affiliated on ill-regulated eating: infinitely more dire are the peevishness and ill-humor which it engenders, the gloomy, hypochondriacal and dissatisfied tempers which generally overtake the intemperate eater and drinker, and make him a pest both to himself and to society. Many a man's fall and ruin have come of the overloaded and thence disordered stomach of another ; as many a man's rise and prosperity of another's temperance and cheerful health. No less destructive is intemperance to the intellectual energies. The intellects which lie sunk in sluggishness through over- loading the stomach, are incomparably more numerous than those which are slow and stupid by nature. The authors themselves of their condition, the cross and imbecile through over-feeding, do not belong to society proper; they are not human, yet neither are they brutes, for no brute is intem- perate; no longer men, gluttons and drunkards form an outside class by themselves, the nobleness of their nature to be estimated, as in all other cases, by the quality and end of their delights. It is worthy of remark, that nothing is more speedily and certainly destructive also of the beauty of the countenance. Diet and regimen are the best of cos- metics; to preserve a fair and bright complexion, the diges- tive organs need primary attention. 37. It is a striking and highly-suggestive fact in human economy, and one here deserving to be noticed, that the two physical powers which have most intimate relation with life, HUNGER AND LOVE THE WORLD'S MINISTERS. 75 the one, to its maintenance in the individual, the other to its communication to new beings, should be precisely those which, while they fill it with energy by right exercise, and confer the keenest of sensuous pleasures, are contrariwise the very powers through which may be inflicted, by abuse, the deepest injuries it is susceptible of Eating and drinking, attended to as nature directs, are the essential origin of every animal pleasure, and the basis of moral and intellec- tual happiness; similarly, the initiative of the sweet privi- lege of offspring invigorates both body and mind,* and is the foundation of home and its smiling circle, with all the dearest and most beautiful affections of humanity. The punishments, on the other hand, which fall upon abuse of the first, are paralleled exactly in the intellectual dulness, the melancholy, the pusillanimity and weariness of life which form the inevitable retribution of excess in the other. By Hunger and Love is the world held together and sweetened ; by Hunger and Love is it disgraced and made wretched. These are the two poles of the little world of human nature, round which everything else revolves ; the very structure of the body in its relation to them corresponding with and resulting from the polar idea. It may be added, that where one of these great institutions is honored, there also, for the most part, is the other; where either is profaned, the pro- fanation extends to both. Though temperance and purity may sometimes not coexist in nice balance, no two things are ever more frequently in company than gluttony, over- drinking, and immodesty. It is in the intimate relation which they bear to life that the reason exists why in all * See on the latter points, Feuchsterleben’s Principles of Medi- cal Psychology,’^ (Sydenham Society’s voL, 1847,) sect. 67, p. 181. The author cites an extraordinary instance in Casanova, who at Buch moments solved the most difficult mathematical problems.” 76 SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF EATING. ages there has been an intuitive reverence in riglitly-ordcrcd minds for the seal of sexual love ; and why a species of sanc- tity has from the earliest days of history attached to eating and drinking, which in ancient times entered largely into religious ceremonies, as they do now and will for ever in the most sacred rite of Christianity. Eating and drinking,” says Feuerbach, ‘‘are themselves religious acts, or at least ought ^io be so. With every mouthful, we should think of the God who gave it.” It is but an amplification of the custom, which commences every procedure of interest or importance with a plentiful spread upon the table. It may not be suspected, and is often dishonored, but the origin of the practice at least was a devout one. Friendship pursues the same course; because, as life is the most precious of pos- sessions, the highest act of goodness that generous sentiment can perform is to provide means for its maintenance and prolongation. To offer food is symbolical of sincerely wish- ing health and longevity. How beautiful are affection and the gift of nourishment united in the first tenderness of the mother towards her babe! She loves and she feeds. Even the plant, when it opens its seed-pods and lets its offspring fall to the earth, bestows upon each little embryo an imita- tive bosom in the milk-like farina which encloses it, and which suckles it during germination. CHAPTER V. THB ATMOSPHETIE IN ITS MEIATION TO IIFE. 38. By the Air — in repose the* atmosphere, in movement the wind — “we live, and move, and have our being.’’ So with all other living creatures. The very word “animal,” signifies “breather.” “Animated nature” means breathing nature; “inanimate” that which does not breathe. The corresponding Greek terms ^cob^; and ^cbov are similarly derived, through ^dco^ to live, from deco^ to breathe, and the intensitive prefix l^d. Grateful for these expressive figures,. the poetic Greeks reflected them on to their source, calling the summer breezes the zephyrs, literally the “life- bringers.” Zephyrus was emphatically' the west wind, and deified, was said to produce flowers and fruit by the sweet- ness of his breath, charmingly alluded to by Homer in his description of the gardens of Alcinous.* Zeh^ or Jupiter * Odyssey vii. 119. Compare Virgil — Zephyris cum Iseta vocantibus sestas “ When gay summer comes, invited by the zephyrs.^^ Georgia iii. 322. See also Lib. ii. 330. Modern poets have freely taken up the idea, and often with great elegance and success, as in the “Paradiso’’ of Dante, — In quella parte, ove surge ad aprire Zeffiro dolce le novelle fronde Di che si vede Europa rivestire. — Canto xii. 46-48. “In that clime where rises the sweet zephyr to unfold the new leaves wherein Europe sees herself fresh clothed.’’ 7 77 78 MCTIAL INFLUENCES OF THE ATMOSPHERE. himself was originally only a personification of the air whence it is that in the poets his names are not uncommonly used in the place of aer and aura, as in the malus Jupiter, sub Jove frigido, &c., of Horace, and when Theocritus says that Xsb^ ‘‘is one while indeed fair, but at another time he rains.” Aratus styles the air Zeh^ (f'jjcxb^, the physical God. ^schylus gives it the epithet “divine.” Virgil de- scribes it as omnipotens pater JEiher. “ But can air,” says Cicero, “which hath no form, be God? For the Deity must necessarily be not only of some form, but the most beau- tiful.” The mediate source of life to every occupant of earth. Hare describes it beautifully as the “unfathomable ether, that emblem of Omnij)resent Deity, which everywhere enfolding and supporting man, yet baffles his senses, and is unperceived, except when he looks upwards and contem- plates it above him.” 39. The air is the great physician of the world. Health confides in it as its most faithful friend. The weak it invi- gorates, the weary it refreshes. What is more grateful than to go from a close room into the pure, blowing breath of heaven, even if it be but on a barren highway ! What more animating and delicious than to exchange the hot, perspiring streets for the breezes of the hills or of the sea! It minis- ters largely even to our moral well-being. Children at boarding-schools are always better disposed to be diligent and well-behaved when the day has been commenced with a walk in the fresh air. Under its genial stimulus we forget our vexations and disappointments, we become cheerful and vivacious, and thence — what without cheerfulness is impos- sible — more willing “to refuse the evil and choose the good.” No wonder that tlie poets seem never in happier mood than when the wind is perceived wafting through their verses — THE ATMOSPHERE NEEDFUL TO BEAUTY. 79 This castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses. This guest of summer, The temple haunting martlet, doth approve By his lovM mansionry, that the heavens’ breath Smells wooingly here. Far more intimate than we suppose is the relation of the atmosphere to the spiritual and intellectual. Nothing so powerfully stimulates intellectual productiveness, where the slightest capacity for it is present, as a walk in a gently- blowing wind. To the brilliant purity of the atmosphere of Athens, and of Greece in general, and the happy tempera- ture of the gales which fanned its hills, so favorite a topic with the panegyrists of that lovely country, are justly ascribed ‘Hhe preeminence in learning, taste, literature, and the arts, in all that constituted (jo(pta in its widest accepta- tion, which distinguished Athens among the nations of the civilized world/’* ^schylus enumerates among the bless- ings of a highly-favored land, “the gales of the winds blow- ing with clear sunshine.” Pindar gives the same to the Islands of the Blest, “ where shine the golden flowers.” 40. At all times and seasons, with all forms and condi- tions of beings, it is no less the function of the Air to embellish. Who so rosy in the cheek as they who oftenest seek the pure country air! How does the plainest face improve, as it blushes under the courtship of the summer breezes I Virgil, with the true poetic instinct, makes ^neas owe his beauty to the heavenly breath of Venus — * Consult, upon the connection of the Greek and Italian atmos- phere with their sculpture, Winckelman’s “History of Art among the Ancient Greeks,” Part 1, section 3. 80 THE ATMOSPHERE NEEDFUL TO BEAUTY. Namque ipsa decoram Coesariem nato genitrix, luniciKpie juventse Purpureum, et laitos oculis ajjidrat honores. ^^For Venus herself had adorned her son with graceful locks, flushed him with the radiant bloom of youth, and breathed a sprightly lustre on his eyes.’’ The wind is necessary even to the vitalizing of the aspects of insensate nature. Scenes dull and uninviting in its absence, become pleasant when we visit them under the inspiration of a breeze ; the loveliest lose in charm if the winds be asleep, though viewed by the light of summer. For this is not merely because the zephyrs temper the too fervent heat of the sunbeams, and by their physical action on the lungs and system generally give buoyancy and elas- ticity to the limbs, and thus enlarge our capacity for enjoy- ment. Nature never shows so lovely when still as when in movement; and it is by the wind that all her charms of motion are produced, whether of the clouds, or the trees, or the corn-fields, or the delicate stalks of the harebells. The grandeur of the unceasing roll of the sea, though partly owing to another cause, proves in itself how mighty an ally to whatever is competent to become beautiful or sublime, is this viewless and marvelous visitant. Motion embellishes nature thus largely, because it is an emblem and character- istic of life, to contemplate which, is one of the souFs highest pleasures, by reason of its own vitality. It loves to behold its immortality pictured in the outward world, be it ever so faintly; and if it meet no reflex in its surveys, feels de- frauded and unsatisfied. The correspondence of the forms of nature with the particular elements of our spiritual being, encourages, this secret love of movement so strong within the sold ; for the soul not only sees in external nature the counterparts of its elements and qualities, but reflections THE ATMOSPHEEE AND THE SENSES. 81 likewise of its activities and deeds. The swaying of the trees, the bending of the flowers, the waving of the corn, severally picture occurrences in the inner life — the one kind promoted by the wind of nature, the other by the Spirit of God. 41. We depend upon the atmosphere for the effectuation of the powers of sense. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin or seat of touch, would all be impotent without it. Our phy- sical power of seeing, for example, depends on our inhabit- ing an atmosphere competent to receive and diffuse the light transmitted from the sun ; and our power of feeling in its equal adaptedness to receive and diffuse the solar heat. There is no feeling where there is no warmth ; what greater antagonism than between cold and sensation? No sound would exist in nature, if there were not an atmosphere sensible to vibrations ; here is its needfulness to hearing. So with odors and flavors, which it is only by inhalation we distinguish and enjoy — here are smell and taste. If we want to avoid the bitterness of physic, we hold the breath ; if to feast on some rich bounty to the palate, we inspire. How beautiful, again, is the imagery here disclosed ! As the atmosphere gives ability to see and hear physically, so does the divine life, as it flows into man’s soul, fill him with power to exercise Intellect and Affection, which are spiritual sight and feeling. Love, or the will-principle, has from the beginning been “warmth,” and Intelligence, or the mental eye, “ light.” Doubtless, man may pervert these inestimable gifts ; just as the earth, which keeps fashion and pace with nim in everything, applies the pure, sacred sunshine to the production of thorns and nettles as well as flowers. But he has no intellectual or affectional power within him, but what is communicated from God ; just as he has no power of see- ing or of feeling but what he owes momentarily and con- tin uously to the sun or its derivatives. All that man receives 82 SPIRITUAL ANALOGIES OF LIGHT AND MUSIC. 1 is heavenly; only what he prepares in and of himself, is bad. The atmosphere brings day-light though the sun be obscured. However overcast the skies, there is yet pro- duced sufficient illumination by the refracting properties of the atmosphere to constitute day. Here is shown, that how- ever thick the clouds which rise up to interpose between God and our hearts, he himself is ever shining steadily beyond them, and in his benevolence transmits to us suffi- cient for our needs. God never deserts any one, not even the most wicked ; He is kind even to the unthankful and the evil and though man, like the earth sending up its dense vapors, may shut out the direct sunbeams which de- scend towards him, he is still provided with a diffused light of refreshing, energizing succor, brofight by the all-per- vading, all-23enetrating Spirit. ‘‘Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence From the same circumstance, ^. e. the refracting properties of the atmosphere, we enjoy the solar light for a long time before the sun actually rises above the horizon, and for as long a period after its setting. In the evening, when by the rota- tion of the earth the sun itself is made to disappear, beams of light are still passed into the higher regions of the air, and thence diffused downwards to the surface of the earth, so that for a while we are unconscious of the loss. Except for this beautiful provision, the evening sun would in a moment set, and the earth be shrouded in sudden darkness. In the morning, by a similar process of irradiation, the atmosphere receives and sheds abroad beams which are not yet visible. 42. The eye and the ear, or sight and hearing, are the types and continents of the senses generally. So, in the conveyance by the atmosphere of light and sound, is summed up, representatively, all that it is the function of the Divine life to communicate. For sound, when its tones ANALOGIES OF LIGHT AND MUSIC. 83 are agreeable and harmonious, is music, and music is objec- tive or visible nature reiterated in a vocal form — the audi- ble counterpart of whatever is lovely and perfect to the eye. Hence the wonderful and enchanting variety in the sounds of nature; a variety sufficient, as we have elsewhere seen, to furnish the foundations of all language.* The dashing of waterfalls, the roar of the sea, the voices of the trees in their different kinds, each intoning to the wind in a new mode, together with the multitudinous diversities of utterance proper to the animate part of creation, are not mere acci- dental results of physical conformation, nor are they mean- ingless or arbitrary gifts. Every one of them is inseparably identified with the object that utters it, because of an origi- nal and immutable agreement in quality. Music, in its es- sential nature, is an expression of the Creator as truly as his objective works. Expressed in forms, the air presents him to the eye — the organ preeminently of the intellect: expressed in sounds, it presents him to the ear — the organ sacred to the affections. When we listen to a beautiful melody or “ it is surveying a charming and varied landscape, vivid with life, and adorned with innumerable elegances, only addressed to another sense — heard instead of seen. It is not only a sublime fact that God thus doubly places himself before us — it is a necessary result of his very nature ; for music stirs the soul so deeply because of its pri- mitive relation to his goodness, and thus to everything con- nected with our emotional life; objective nature, on the other hand, so largely delights the intellect (having only a secondary influence on the heart), because it is fashioned after the ideas of his wisdom. Each, moreover, assumes its loveliest when the other is in company, because in Him * Figurative Language : its Origin and Constitution,’’ chapters 7 and 8. 84 A CHARACTERISTIC OF ORGANIC LIFE. their prototypes are married. Never is nature so beautiful as when we view it in the hearing of true music; in no place does music sound so sweet as amid her responsive and tranquil retreats. Why should we go in ? My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you, Within the house, your mistress is at hand, And bring your music forth into the air. Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears. Echo, due like other sounds to the agency of the atmosphere, exemplifies the same fine truths. The sympathy we feel with the objective forms of nature is the equivalent of the agreeable answers with which she acknowledges our voice. Echo, in her beautiful and undelayed replies, is the image and emblem of the responses in which the emotions of man’s spirit, when he addresses himself to God, are immediately reflected back upon himself, coming invisibly, he knows not whence, but with a magical and most sweet power. No wonder that the poets have in all ages given Echo a fond and grateful mention.* 43. Let us pass on to the consideration of the air in its immediate bearing upon the maintenance of organic life. * What can be more beautiful than the following, in the Per- sians of AEschylus {Ittcl ye pLCProi K. r. X. 386-391) — “When Day, drawn by white steeds, had overspread the earth, resplendent to be- hold, first of all a shout from the Greeks greeted Echo like a song, and Echo from the island rock in the same moment shouted back an inspiring cry.’^ Moschus, in his elegy on Bion, and Bion, in his own sweet poem upon the death of Adonis, represent Echo as sharing in tlieir lamentations, as does Milton, bewailing Lycidas. Other ele- gant allusions occur in Horace, Odes 1, 20; Tasso, Gerusalemme xi. 11 ; Euripides, Shakspere, Camoens, Shelley, and Byron, particularly one in Manfred. RESPIRATION IN AGREEMENT WITH VIGOR. 85 Grand as are the capacities of the vital stimuli, or heat, light, and electricity, and invaluable as are the uses sub- served by feeding, it remains incontestably true that without continuous supplies of fresh air. Life cannot go on. We are forever referred back to Respiration as the prime cha- racteristic of a healthy, living creature. The assimilation of food may be suspended for a time ; darkness and severe cold may be endured, the former even for years ; but respi- ration must be steady, or the creature dies. Every living thing breathes more or less ; only the lowest forms of animal life can bear intermissions of breathing for any considerable period ; even the foul parasites called Entozoa cannot live without air, though secluded by their position from direct contact with thn atmosphere. Entophytal fungi, or those which are found in the interior of other plants, and some- times in the bodies of animals, are for the most part only the mycelia of species which the imperfect supply of air prevents from developing into the perfect form. 44. Not only is life, as a whole, inseparable from respira- tion, but every variety in the manifestation of life. Where respiration is vigorous, as in the feathered tribes, life is ener- getic ; where it is feeble, as in the reptile, life is slow. Similar phenomena pertain to the various epochs of life. The rest- lessness of the child, and the activity of the boy, correspond with the vigor of their breathing: the calmness and power of the man are combined with a usually tranquil respiration, capable of being increased to the utmost as occasion calls for the higher energies of life; in the old man, deliberate in his movements, respiration is limited, and usually slow.” Breathing varies even with the condition of the body, and its employments. We breathe differently in sickness and in health; differently asleep and awake; differently in the per- formance of every action of our animal organs. We breathe In one mode when we walk, in another when we run. Breath- 8 8B OBJECT OF BESPIBATION. ing, accordingly, is not only a physiological but a representa- tive jdienomenoii. In the respiratory breast dwell, along with its health, magnanimity and heroic courage; where the breathing is languid, we look but for timorousness and de- bility. In our own species, the face itself, the silent echo of the heart, is not a more faithful index to our states, either of body or mind, than is our breathing. As the emotions manifest themselves in the play of the muscles and the light of the eyes, as they are shown, too, in the tone of voice, in the harshness, the tremor, the as 2 :>erity or the sweetness of the uttered sound, and are interpreted thereby, so is it with the attendant breathing. Let us but hear how a person is breathing, and though he be out of sight we may infer to a certain extent, how he is employed, and judge of his general tranquility or the reverse. See what testimony to it there is ill Language ! To be animated,” to be spirited,” or “full of spirits,” is to have breath in plenty. To be “out of spirits,” “spiritless,” or “dispirited,” is to be destitute of breath; literally in every case; for all agreeable, lively, or “life-like”, emotions, tend to raise and quicken the breath, while depressing ones tend to lower and deaden it. Eager- ness pants; despondency sighs; weariness yawns; extreme fear makes us breathless or “aghast.”* 45. The object of resj^iration is closely allied to that of Feeding; nay, it is no other than that of feeding. Consist- ing of an infinite number of little stomachs, closely asso- ciated and connected, but feeding upon aerial and gaseous food instead of terrestrial and solid, such as is received into the cavity of the stomach proper, the Lungs are no less im- mediately concerned in the maintenance of the health and * See for an admirable development of the whole subject. Garth Wilkinson’s banqnet-likc chapter of the Lungs, in “The Human Body, and its connexion with Man.” OBJECT OE RESPIRATION. 87 vigor of the blood than the great, proper stomach itself. Not only does the blood require to be nourished with the products of digestion, but to be freely and regularly aerated, not to have air directly admitted to it, but to be brought into that peculiar proximity to the air which is effected by the process of natural breathing. This, in the mammalia, takes place, as Ave are all aware, in the lungs. Immediately the blood enters these organs, in the process of circulation, the fact is signalled by certain nerves to the medulla ohlon- gata.^ In an instant, obedient to an imperious order sent back through certain other nerves, the diaphragm and muscles of the ribs expand the chest, and thus enlarge its cavity. A vacuum would now be caused, but the air, rush- ing doAvn from without, fills every corner, and in so doing, aerates the awaiting blood, feeding it with oxygen, and re- ceiving carbon in exchange. Then the various muscles renew their play; but this time so as to contract, instead of expand the chest, the lungs e^^spire, instead of mspiring, the carbon is ejected by the mouth and nostrils, and the series of actions constituting a respiration is complete. Eenewed by the oxygen thus communicated, the blood noAV moves on again to the heart, Avlience it Avas first propelled, and Avhence it is again transmitted to the body, again to be carbonized and weakened, and in due course to be returned into the lungs for refreshment as before. Thus is the history of the lungs inseparable from that of the heart. Complementary to one another, these two noble organs, the heart and the lungs, and their functions, circulation and respiration, form a beautiful duality in unity, representing in the body the * Medulla oblongata is the name given by anatom.ists to a peculiar organ contained within the skull, yet no part of the brain properly BO called, but intermediate between this and the spinal cord, upon the summit of which it stands. 88 DUALITY IN UNITY. understanding and the affections, and their cooperative play in every action of the soul. The latter, as we have seen above, represent in turn the all-supporting wisdom and good- ness of God — the infinite. Divine essences which, expressed as life, conserve the universe. They fall, accordingly, under those two sublime, reciprocal principles of creation which in their most externalized physical embodiment we term Male and Female; and whose noblest presentation, or Man and Woman, are the lungs and the heart of the world. As man and woman, by reciprocity and cooperation, instrumental ly keep the human race alive; so, by harmonious, conjugal action and re-action, the lungs and the heart instrumentally keep the human body alive. If either fail to perform its office, the other sinks powerless, and the fabric dies. Let the heart be as well-disposed to live as it may, unless its de- sires be recognized and responded to by the lungs, all is in vain ; for though there is no life where there is no blood, there is no proper, life-sustaining blood where there is no air: conversely, the lungs are efficient for their part, as stewards of life, only in so far as the heart cooperates with them ; so grand and universal is the eternal fiat that nothing shall exist for itself alone, but only as the husband or the wife of some other thing; that the unions of each pair shall be followed by the development and sustentation of some form or mode of life; that celibacy shall be infertility, and estrangement a gateway for death. Until the two organs are conjoined in complementary action, by the lungs drawing breath, the grand drama of existence, as we well know, does not commence. In the womb, life exists only in potency. Marriage is everywhere the real beginning; and there are no' real beginnings without it.* * See tlie beautiTul description of the marriage of the Heart and Lungs, in Swedenborg’s ‘^Animal Kingdom,” i. 398. THE HEAET AND THE LUNGS. 89 46. It is not to be imagined that the heart and lungs do the whole work of life. Just as marriage, which has for its physical end the sustentation of the human race, requires for its effectuation a variety of subsidiary and contributive conditions, so the maintenance of the life of the body by the heart and lungs, which is a representative of marriage and its object, demands (intermediately through the nervous centres) the contributive functions of the stomach, the skin, the liver, and other organs. And more than this : if the action of any one of them become deranged, neither heart nor lungs can do their work for them ; just as with complex machinery, where, if a single wheel be thrown out of gear,’’ the coordination of actions is so interfered with that the whole apparatus comes to a stand. Every organ of the body is in league with every other organ. Every one of them has its own peculiar province and vocation, but is in treaty at the same moment, offensive and defensive, with every other. Nothing is proper to any member in this unique and truly royal society that does not go forth in turn for the interest and advantage of that society. Local benefits immediately become public ones ; what injures in one part, is a calamity to the Avhole. The cardinal life of every organ,” says Swedenborg — the excellency of its life over other organs-^consists in the fact, that whatever it has of its own, still in a wider sense belongs to the community; and whatever afterwards results from the community to the organ, is the only individual property which the latter claims.” It is not that the heart and lungs are all, but that life is preeminently effectuated through them ; the cessation of their activity, or of the activity of either of them, being also, as we shall see presently, the most usual and imminent cause of death. So far from any one organ, or set of organs, being autocratic, there is nothing in the whole scope of the natural history of the human body more wonderful than 1 90 SYMPATHY OF ORGANS AND FUNCTIONS. the S}mpathy and concurrent energy of its various parts, unless it be the fine illustrative analogy afforded in the relations of the senses, as intimated to our daily conscious- ness. Not one of the senses can be exercised 'without sim- o gesting to the mind acts and objects which belong to one or more of their colleagues ; and the highest pleasures we enjoy through their medium, are those which result from our being able to use some two or three of them at once. The water- fall, we love not only to see, but to hear ; and not only to hear, but to see; the eye helps the palate to the higher enjoyments of food, and the nose to be more gratified with the smell of flowers ; who ever looks on the smooth cheek of a little child, without seeking an enhanced pleasure in patting it! True science is never science only. On the same principle commences all true investigation. To know any single and individual thing thoroughly, it needs that we gather instruction concerning it from all things. To learn the true nature of a primrose, we must inquire of firs and palm-trees, and every other plant that springs forth from the earth’s bosom. From the same facts, brought to bear in yet another direction, may we learn how it is that undue indulgence in any sensuality enslaves the whole being, and gradually chains a man’s every thought and wish to the adopted habit of the sense given way to. 47. In the full sense of the term. Respiration is a far grander performance than the mere inhalation of fresh air through the air-passages. Essentially, it is concurrent and coextensive with the circulation, so that its seat is the entire fabric. Numbers of animals have no lungs, commonly so called; many have no special respiratory organs whatever. They breathe, nevertheless. Such, for example, are jelly- fishes, and the lowest forms of Crustacea. In these, respi- ration takes place through the medium of the skin. Not til at this is a new arrangement for the purpose of breathing, PECULIARITIES OE BREATHING APPARATUS. 91 now for the first time met with. Animals possessing a special apparatus, have cutaneous respiration ; man has it, in a slight degree. Here, however, it is only auxiliary; whereas in the jelly-fishes it stands in lieu of the pulmonary kind, and the creature depends upon it alone. The mecha- nism of respiration in animals possessing lungs, is to be regarded merely as the highest development of a respiratory apparatus. It holds the first place because it is the mecha- nism by which the greatest quantity of oxygen can be taken into the system. There is no difference in principle between the two kinds ; it is a difference simply of vigor and com- pleteness, the oxygen being admitted over an infinitely larger surface in lungs than when it has to make its way through the integuments. The position of the respiratory apparatus, which, like its form, is most curiously diversified in different creatures, is, generally speaking, regulated by the medium in which the animal is intended to live — on land, or in water. Terrestrial animals, breathing air in its gasiform condition, have internal breathing apparatus ; aquatic animals, collecting it from the water, have the apparatus in or near the surface. By virtue of these arrangements, neither class of animal can endure exchange of natural location. The bird and the mammal drown if submerged in water; the fish drowns if exposed to the atmosphere. This is, in the former case, because water cannot furnish an adequate supply of atmospheric air ; in the latter, because the respiratory organs, from their external position, rapidly become dry by evaporation. Aquatic animals which have them partially covered, live longer out of water than those which have them exposed. The activity of life, in aquatic as well as in terrestrial animals, is univer- sally in the ratio of the development of their respiratory apparatus. The energetic habits of fishes, and the higher Crustacea, such as crabs and lobsters, correspond with the 92 RESPIRATION AND ANIMAL HEAT. higher development of their breathing organs ; the com- paratively sluggish life of the mollusca, the annelida, and the branchial amphibia, corresponds with the accomj)any- ing lower development. A creature possessing both pul- monary and cutaneous respiration, but able to live by cutaneous respiration only, if prevented from breathing through the lungs, sinks into the sluggishness and inactivity which characterize the animals it is then leveled with in regard to qualification for breathing.* 48. By respiration, accordingly, in the complete idea of the process, and however effectuated, whether by lungs or other apparatus, or cutaneously, oxygen is introduced to every part, and carbon removed from every part. The chemical process which goes on during the formation of the carbonic acid in which the carbon is carried away, is at- tended by the extrication of “ animal heat.’’ Here, then, are three purposes served : renovation of the blood, purifi- cation of it, and sustentation of temperature. Not that ‘^animal heat,” even as commonly so understood, comes exclusively of the combustion concurrent with respiration. The evolution of animal heat is largely dependent on the nervous energy. The lower the nervous energy of an ani- mal, the lower is its temperature ; the higher the nervous energy, the higher is its temperature. It is not the larger or smaller nervous system which is thus operative, but the higher or lower nervous energy. Dr. Carpenter, in his large work on Comparative Physiology, gives every kind of proof and illustration. Mr. Newport’s papers on the Temperature and Respiration of Insects, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1835 and 1837, may also be usefully con- * See for illustrations, an excellent paper on Respiration, by Dr. Sibson, in the Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Assoeiati(>n, vol. xvii., 1850. RESPIEATION AND ANIMAL HEAT. 93 suited. ‘^Animal heat/’ in the popular use of the phrase, is not animal heat after all. What is so termed by the physiologists is as purely mineral” heat as any that radi- ates from inanimate fire or candle. Animal heat, properly so called, is the zeal which urges the creature to the active exercise of its powers. There could not be a particle in the body of what is commonly but erroneously so designated, if the Divine Life did not already warm it with this, the true animal heat. That which the mere combustion of oxygen and carbon introduces is but supplementary and contingent. Under all phenomena lies a profounder cause than chemistry or anatomy can point out. The Divine Life everywhere takes the initiative ; the apparent causes are secondary, and are operative only as resting on it as a substratum. It should be noted, too, that the lower we descend in the scale of being, the more do these apparent, scientific causes seem disused. While, for instance, the higher animals have their blood propelled by the muscular engine we call the heart, in many of the lower kinds, and in plants, there is no such engine; the circulation goes on nevertheless. Besides the quasi-chemical use of the air in respiration, there is a use in the mechanical act of breathing it. There is no life where there is no motion, and there is no vital motion but where Air is passing to and fro, or indirectly actuating. The lungs are the first to move under its impulse; the heart beats time to them ; the brain falls as often as we inspire, and rises with every expiration. In a child under two years old, the latter may be felt as plainly as the pulse. Place your hand low down on the body, and there too is found constant and consentaneous movement with the lungs. Respiration, in a word, keeps everything on the move, and as soon as it ceases, comes the stagnation of death. 49. Respiration does more yet than bring in oxygen and carry away carbon, and subserve the maintenance of vital 94 THE ATMOSPHERE A SOURCE OF FOOD. warmth. It is itself a positive feeder of the hody, with good aliment or with bad, according to the kind of atmosphere we inhale. The air is no mere compound of oxygen, nitro- gen, and carbon, as such. ‘Tt is a product elaborated from all the kingdoms of nature; the seasons are its education; it is passed through the fingers of every herb and tree. Who- ever looks upon it as one universal thing, is like a dreamer playing with the words animal kingdom, vegetable kingdom, and so forth, and forgetting that each comprises many genera, innumerable species, and individuals many times innumera- ble. The air is a cellarage of aerial wines, the heaven of the spirits of the plants and flowers, which are safely kept there till called for by the lungs and skin. The assumption that the oxygen is the all, is ungrateful for the inhabitant of any land whose fields are fresh services of fragrance from county to county and from year to year.” All the virtues of the ground and of vegetation are in the atmosphere by exhalation ; it is a kind of solution of some of everything that the world contains, and from it, as from a fountain, all come into the lungs and circulation. Not only does man live in the world, but the world, as to its essences, is con- tained within itself, literally as well as correspondentially. Thus is our assertion not a meaningless one, that all nature subsidizes and ministers to the blood. The ruins of the air, when chemistry has pulverized it, may be no more than what a brief formula of Eoman letters will express ; but its influence on us, while unmolested, comes of a compositeness that no art can emulate. ‘^Change of air” is something more to the sick man than change of oxygen, and on the other side of the picture are the dark, sad mysteries of air- conveyed infections, and the endless evils produced by con- fined, ill-ventilated abiding places. Dirty air is the source of incomparably greater evils than dirty water. Many complaints we are least apt to attribute to it, take their rise; THE ATMOSPIIEEE IN EELATTON TO PLANTS. 95 without doubt, in shut-up bed-rooms, and other domestic stagnant air-pools, the contents of which, were they out visi- ble, would fill us with horror and disgust. The body is not the only sufierer from impure air. Though vice and im- pure air may be found in company, virtue and foul air are incompatible. The temper of a public meeting is often in- fluenced by the condition of the air which it is breathing ; to talk of a moral atmosphere’’ is not altogether a figure of speech. To the extreme and disgusting foulness of the air which they commonly breathe is, probably, to be re- ferred much of the indulgence of the poor in strong drink, especially ardent spirits. They take it as a necessity, claimed by nature as a kind of counterpoise to the ofiensive and pernicious actions of bad smells. The best temperance agent that can be got is a clean and well ventilated home. No training, however skilfully conducted, no dieting or tee- totalism, however rigid or prolonged, can bring a man into good condition, either of body or mind, so long as he is con- demned to breathe an impure atmosphere. Sanitary asso- ciations do well in teaching that the life is the blood, and that without pure air, healthy blood is but a name. 50. The particular mode in which the air ministers to plant-\\iQ is found in the history of the growth or develop- ment of the vegetable structure. The great mass of the ve- getable fabric is derived, not from the soil, but from the air which bathes the leaves. The strictly mineral ” part of its food, as lime, silica, and potash, it undoubtedly sucks from the earth, whence the value of manures, and the difference produced by “good” and “bad” soils, but it is at the cost of the carbonic acid, water, and ammonia of the atmosphere, that it essentially lives, (p. 63.) Much, indeed, of what it })roximately procures from under ground is virtually atmo- spheric, because previously carried thither by the rain. Thousands of plants have no connection whatever with the 96 PLANTS UNCONNECTED WITH THE EARTH. earth, but grow upon the surface of other plants. Sucli are the beautiful aerial flowers called Orchidea?, which in their wild state, live from first to last on the trees of their native forests, and demand an imitative location when brought into our hot houses and conservatories. They are not like the misletoe, parasites — thieves of the substance of the tree they perch upon, but simply epiphytes ’’ — bird-like lodgers among the branches. Dendrobium, Epidendrum, Dendroli- rion, are names ingeniously descrij)tive of tlreir nature. Es- sentially, without doubt, they feed as terrestrial plants do — indebted largely to the various decaying organic matters which accumulate round about them, both of animal origin and vegetable. Lifted, however, as they are, so far above the surface of the earth, they show, in the most beautiful manner, how independently of direct connection with it ve- getable existence may be maintained, and how thoroughly at home it may be in the atmosj^here. Two species of Or- chidese, called Air-plants, find in it their entire nourish- ment.* What epiphytes are in the air, Algse are in the water, drawing from it their chief supplies ; for their roots, so called, are little more than organs of adhesion. Not wholly so, since many show a decided preference for certain kinds of rocks, and for the branches of certain other Algse, seated upon which, they attain higher perfection. Under the influence of light, the leaves, both of terrestrial and aerial plants, become the seats at once of respiration and as- similation. If leaves be not developed, as in the cactus, tlieir place is supplied by the tender green skin of the gene- ral surface, which is then so modified as to perform the fo- * The trunks and branches of tlie trees in tropical Brazil, Mr. Gardner tells us, abound not only with Orchidcse, but with Bromelia- ccae, Tillandsias, Ferns, and various climbing species of Begonia, all of course dependent upon the Atmosphere. PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF MUTUAL SERVICE. 97 liar functions. Carbon, ammonia, and water are taken up, and oxygen is set free. Hence the leaves are well styled the ‘^lungs’’ of plants; the lungs, for their part, being animal trees clothed with innumerable foliage. The leafless plants may be compared with the animals whose respiration is wholly cutaneous. To enable respiration to take place, the cuticle of every leaf is pierced with innumerable pores well called by the vegetable anatomist, sto7nates, since mouths they are, both in form and office. The most ordinary mi- croscope will bring them into view, and show a wonderful variety in their figure. 51. Absorbing carbon, and liberating oxygen, which is the reverse of the animal process of respiration, plants are the great purifiers of the atmosphere as regards animals. The only exception to their use in this respect occurs in the fungi — plants which, unlike the purifying tribes, are never of a green color. What animal respiration exhales, vegeta- ble respiration consumes, and vice versa. There is, however, always some small amount of carbonic acid in the course of disengagement from plants, especially at night, when also they absorb oxygen. On this is founded the popular notion, so immensely exaggerated, that plants kept in a bed-room are injurious to the sleeper. Plants, by their assimilation, purify the air much more than by their respiration they vitiate it. They are breathers at once for their own interests, and for those of animals. Plants live by animals, and animals by plants. The girdling and encircling air, their common property, is that which truly makes the whole world kin. ‘‘The carbonic acid with which our breathing fills the air, to-morrow will be spreading north and south, and striving to make the tour of the world. The date trees that grow round the fountains of the Nile will drink it in by their leaves; the cedars of Lebanon will take of it to add to their stature; the cocoa-nuts of Tahiti will grow richer on 9 E 98 TREES AND PLANTS IN CEMETERIES. it; the lotus plants will change it into flowers. Contrari- wise, the oxygen we are taking in was distilled for us, some little time ago, by the magnolias of the Susquehanna, and the great trees that skirt the Orinoco and the Amazon. The rhododendrons of the Himalayahs contribute to it, the roses and myrtles of Cashmere, the cinnamon and the clove trees of the Spice islands.” In recognizing this fine use of plants in the economy of the world, we must be careful not to over- estimate it. The primary use of plants is to supply food; the purification of the air is but a subordinate use. For every kindness they do to the lungs of animals there are a thousand done to their stomachs. 52. In the fact that vegetation purifies the air by absorbing from it what is deleterious, resides a capital argument against intra-mural interments. There cannot be a doubt that the beautiful, time-honored, and world-wide practice of shelter- ing graves with trees, and adorning them with flowers, is attended by valuable sanitary results, such as are wholly precluded when burials are made amid streets and houses. While the sight of evergreen trees, and of flowers in their season, soothes and consoles the mind, by virtue of their associations and emblematic teachings, the atmosphere is improved and renovated. So true it is that whatever is practically wise is always in keeping with what is poetically beautiful, and an exemplification of it. Many of the trees which poetical intuition has pronounced appropriate to the side of the sepulchre, by reason of their evergreen or other symbolical characters, are precisely such as scientific design would approve. Witness the arbor-vita3, the Oriental cypress, and certain kinds of coniferse; all of them more or less narrow and conical in form, neither covering a large space with their branches, nor casting too much shade when the sun shines, and freely admitting the air and light. The beauty of the cypress-planted cemeteries of the Turks is well known. WAVING BOUGHS BETTER THAN MARBLE. 99 At Constantinople the chief promenade for Europeans is the cemetery of Pera, delightfully placed on a hill-side, and abounding with this handsome tree. “At Scutari,’’ Miss Pardoe tells us, “preferred by the Turks to all other burial- places, because of certain comfortable superstitions connected with it, a forest of the finest cypress extends over an im- mense space, clothing hill and valley, and seen far ofi* at sea, — an object at once striking and magnificent.” In the cemetery appropriated to the Armenians, instead of the cypress, the Acacia is the prevailing tree. Marble is good, but waving boughs are better. It will be one of the most certain indications of progress in real, practical science, when town burial-grounds shall be abolished for the sake of rural cemeteries like gardens. Wherever such have been formed, they have been regarded with satisfaction, and their general establishment would unquestionably lead to a marked diminution of average mortality, by removing a deadly evil. CHAPTER VI. MOTION rilE UNI VERSA! SIGN OE II FE, 53. Keviewing these various and wonderful procevsses, we cannot fail to observe how, in its every phase and expres- sion, the great sign and certificate of life is Motion. Use- fully, then, may we pause upon the consideration of it as a kind of summary and continent of vital phenomena. No- thing exists independently of motion as its cause; by reason, likewise, of motion, all things hold together and preserve their form. “Passive life,” sometimes spoken of, is a con- tradiction in terms ; certain states of being may be relatively passive, but there is no such thing as absolute passivity. In no case a state ijpso facto, passivity is everywhere an incident of motion, consequently to be referred to motion, and to be explained by motion. Doubtless there is great diversity in the degree and amount of motion; also in its manifestation to the eye. We must not confound it with moving about Motion, ordinarily so called, implying visible change of place and position, and furnishing us with ideas of time, does not comprise the All of motion. There is motion which no eye can perceive, motion which we are made aware of only by witnessing its results. Of this kind, indeed, is the chief part; the most wonderful and eificient movements in the world are those which proceed in secrecy and silence.* * Robert Boyle has an essay, well known to the curious, “On the great eHects of Languid and Unheeded Motion.’^ See in particular, chapters viii. and ix. TOO ANIMAL MOTION. 101 The feebler and briefer the exhibition of motion, especially the latter, the lower is the expression of life ; the more ener- getic and continuous it is, the higher is the life — so that apart from structure, motion is a criterion of vital excellence, of course under the reservation that the quality of life depends primarily and essentially upon its End ; else would the sea be more living than a plant; and a watch, or other piece of self-acting mechanism, commend itself as of nobler nature than many animals. Inanimate as it is, the watch, by rea- son of these relations, excites agreeable ideas of life, at least in the minds of the intelligent; while by the child and the savage, unacquainted with its construction, it is unhesita- tingly pronounced “alive!” Experience rectifies the error, but vindicates the principle upon which the mistaken judg- ment was entertained. 54. Animals, as holding the highest offices in the economy of creation, therefore the noblest forms, and the highest degrees of life, present in their various history the completest examples of vital motion. Their movements are both in- ternal and external. The great internal movement is the circulation of the blood, and its familiar token, the beating of the heart. This is the circumstance on which the very name of Life is founded; its proximate root, the Anglo- Saxon lyhban, “to live,” being ultimately assignable to the Arabic lub, the heart, or the congenerous Hebrew name for that organ, leb. Literally, therefore, “life” means “the heart;” a fact beautifully in unison with the great funda- mental truth, alike of religion and philosophy, that Life is Love. It is for etymologists to determine how far the law of transposition of letters may or may not show “lub” and “life” in the Greek word (fcX-eco^ “T love.” The ancient Egyptians used a heart, placed in the midst of a censer of flame, for the hieroglyph of heaven, the source to the world, as the heart is to the body, of all activity and life. Nothing 0 102 MOTION IN PJ.ANTS. is easier than to verify that the life of the body consists in its internal movements. How painful to sit perfectly still, even for a few minutes, as when having one’s likeness taken by photography! The performers in tableaux vivans and poses plastiques find that to play at statues is the hardest trial of human nature. Dependent on the circulation, and less admired only because of its deep privacy, is that won- derful and incessant flux of the ultimate atoms of the body which has been described above, and which led the genius of Cuvier to compare it to a whirlpool, an intense and un- ceasing stream, into which new matter is for ever flowing, and from which the old is as steadily moving out. 55. External movement culminates in the grand preroga- tive of locomotion, the highest terrene presentation of the great omnipresent law of Attraction, — the law which, under the formula and name of chemical affinity, brings together the atoms of the pebble; and which, at the other extreme of creation, under the formula and name of Love, impels all creatures towards what they have need of or desire. Where there is the greatest capacity for locomotion, there also is Ingenuity at its maximum. ’bhe animals which possess least of the constructive instinct are the slow-paced reptiles * the expertest artisans in the world, are the birds and flying insects — man, of course, excepted, who has more capacity than either; not, indeed, of the same nature, nor corporeal at all, but derived from the very instruments which prove his ingenuity also the highest, his railways and his ships. 56. As in the animal kingdom, so in the vegetable. Plants, fpiicsccnt as they appear, depend for their existence on the motion of the juices contained within their substance; the force witli which the sap flows onwards when the plant is in full vigor, is like tlie rusli of a little river; even in winter, wlicn visii)lc vitality is suspended, motion is still going on, though languidly; the process of development is never MOTION IN PLANTS. 103 entirely arrested; in the season of deepest torpidity, a slight enlargement of the buds, in preparation for the spring, is still to be observed. Were we endowed with eyesight ade- quately fine, and were the integuments and tissues of plants made transparent, we should see in every twig and leaf of every plant the most energetic and persevering activity; as by means of a glass hive we may watch at our leisure the working of its indefatigable little townsfolk. One class of internal movements in plants does actually allow of obser- vation, just as in certain reptiles, as the frog, it is possible to observe the circulation of the blood-corpuscles. When a small portion of the cuticle of the Vallisneria is submitted to a sufficient magnifying power, in the interior of every one of its delicate cells there is seen a beautiful swimming pro- cession of little globules, round and round, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, till the vitality of the fragment is ex- hausted. A similar motion has been noticed in many other plants, terrestrial as well as aquatic, and probably it is general. Even the external movement of plants, induced by the excitation of the wind, notwithstanding its purely extraneous origin, is a highly important circumstance of their economy. It is evident that the boughs of trees are so arranged, and the leaves of plants in general so distributed and poised, as to admit of the swaying and fiuttering which the wind promotes ; and that benefit results from such move- ment, corresponding, as it does, to the exercise of their limbs by animals, it seems unreasonable to doubt. How different the condition of the captives in our green-houses and conser- vatories, debarred from every opportunity of movement, compared with that of the glad, free trees, waving through- out the year in the breezes of the open country ! As exercise gives strength and solidity to the animal fabric, so do the vegetable denizens of the fields and hills wax sturdy through the agitation of their branches. When Horner would indicate 104 MOTIONS OF INORGANIC NATURE. unusual strength and toughness in Ins heroes’ spear-shafts, lie calls them diye/wTfisarj^^ ‘Svind-nurtured,” or ‘‘wind- hardened.” “Pine-trees,” says tlie prince of arborists, “ in thick woods, where the liigh winds have not free access to shake them, grow tall and slender, but not strong; while others, placed in open fields, and frecpiently shaken by strong blasts, have not only thick and sturdy stems, but strike deep root, and raise beautiful and spreading branches.”* 57. Astronomy, chemistry, meteorology, though their sub- jects belong to an entirely different province of being, find, like physiology, that all their phenomena commence in mo- tion. Not only has it been placed beyond a doubt that the group of worlds which includes our own is advancing through the heavens, but it has been determined in what direction it moves, and within certain limits, what is the velocity of its motion. If true of one system of sun and planets, it must be true of all. Every star that w^ espy is unquestionably rolling onwards, and carrying with it the spheres to which it is the local orb of day, the immeasurable altitude alone preventing the eye from pursuing; as Avhen from the brow of a lofty cliff by the sea we discern far-dis- tant ships that we know by their spread canvas to be sailing, but which the extreme remoteness make appear to be at anchor. “If we imagine,” says Humboldt, “as in a vision of the fancy, the acuteness of our senses preternaturally sharpened, even to the extreme limits of telescopic vision, and incidents wliich are separated by vast intervals of time, compressed into a day, or an hour, ever3dhing like rest in special existence will forthwith disappear. We shall find the innumerable hosts of the fixed stars cornmoved in groups in different directions; nebula) drawing hither and thither, I oi * Evelyn. Sylva, Book 2d, chap. 8. MOTIONS OF INORGANIC NATURE. 105 like cosmic clouds ; the milky-way breaking up in particular parts, and its veil rent; motion in every part of the vault of heaven.’’ It is the motion of our own little planet which chiefly adorns the sky with its varied splendors, as sunrise and sunset, and the shining and stately march of the con- stellations. Of the agitation of its enveloping atmosphere come the winds for health of body, and the magnificent sce- nery of cloud-land for delight of soul; the rain, the tem- pest, the Aurora, meteors, and those strange “ fiery tears of the sky” which we term falling stars, announce over again that the realms of aerial space, all still and passive as they seem, are yet realms of unresting life. The very substance of the earth is ever-moving; the interior is incessantly in- ducing changes upon the exterior ; waves of motion are con- tinually 'passing through, indicated by the sinking of the land in some parts of the globe, and its rising in others, so that old beaches are left inland, and old high-water marks sunk far out at sea; hot springs, volcanoes, earthquakes, attest more vehemently still what agitation there is below. “ Could we obtain daily news of the state of the whole of the earth’s crust,” continues the author of Kosmos, we should in all probability become convinced that some point or other of its surface is constantly shaken.” Yet all these greater movements of the earth’s substance are but stupendous analogues of movements as incessantly going on among its elements — visible, acknowledged movements. What life is there in crystallization ! What energy in combustion ! What vivacity in effervescence! True, some of them are of brief duration, if we look only at a particular scene of their dis- play; but taking the total of the world, they are unremit- ting. Even in a given spot, they may be indefinitely pro- longed, like the ever-burning fire of the Vestal Virgins, pro- vide, Met., vii. 185-188.) ^‘Men, birds, and animals lie dissolved in deep repose; the mur- mur of the woods is hushed ; the leaves are motionless ; the humid air is still ; the stars alone twinkle Not that motion is sufficient to excite ideas of beauty; everywhere in nature there must be a combination of two separate ideas, complementary to each other, before we can realize satisfaction in the beholding; the second, in the pre- sent instance, being the idea of Repose, as we may easily perceive by considering the movements of animals, and more particularly, those of man. Swimming, flying, walk- ing, are graceful, and therefore pleasing, only when we gather from them ideas of Rest, such as are conveyed by that aspect of ease and security, resulting from a perfectly- felt balance, which characterizes them when unlaborious and unaffected. Attitudes, on the same principle, which com- mend themselves as peculiarly beautiful and graceful, though they seem to depend for their eflect upon the exqui- site arrangement of the body and limbs, derive the half of it from their flowing, motion-hinting curves. 60. Repose is needful not only to physical beauty; it be- longs as largely to the finest attitudes of the spiritual life, and is the state in which the imagination is most exquisitely unfolded. All true genius recognizes this. Shakspere would not let the players ‘Hear a passion to tatters.” He directs thpm, “in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, 10 110 REPOSE IN REFERENCE TO ART. wliirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that Avill give it smoothness.’’ ‘‘The turmoil, tlie battle, the tumult of the Iliad is accompanied by the repose of studied measure. Amid the carnage of men we see the gods tranquil spectators, and when they are in the conflict, Achilles rests.” So in Art. The same beautiful combination of action and repose in nature which reflects from the verses of the poet, is the foremost quality of the best efforts of the painter and the sculptor. The noblest and loveliest statues are those whose pure white marble is consecrated not more to life’s emotions than to Repose. CHAPTER VI. . DJEATM, 61. The cessation of the vital activities is Death, which, though commonly spoken of as an actual existence, is simply another name for discontinuance. All forms recipient of life die some time. Some few may be privileged to survive the rest, even for thousands of years, as happens with certain trees, but the same death which in regard to the children of men, while it surprises many, skips not one, at last over- powers the most tenacious. ‘‘Come like shadows, so de- part,’’ is the law of the entire material creation, in fact, as great a law as that it lives. For death is no accident of nature, neither is it in the least degree punitive. It is an essential and benevolent part of the very idea of material existence, bound up with the original scheme and method of creation as completely as gravitation is. Things die, not because they have been sentenced to, judicially, the sentence being effectuated, as often supposed, by a change superin- duced upon thei-r original constitution ; but because without death, nature could not endure. Birth, growth, and arriving at maturity, as completely imply decay and death as the source of a river implies the termination of it, or as spring and summer imply corn-fields and reaping. Hence, what- ever the vigor and the powers of repair that may pertain to any given structure, whatever resistance it may offer to the shocks of Ages, Time, sooner or later, dissolves it; careful, however, to renew whatever it takes away, and to convert, 111 112 DEATH IN CONNECTION WITH THE FALL. invariably, every end into a new beginning. Tliere is not a grave m the whole circuit of nature that is not at the same moment a cradle. G2. That death was brought into the world by Adam, we by no means intend to deny. Nothing is more true. Let us rightly understand, however, what kind of death it was. For death is no unitary thing; there are as many ways of dying as of living. Death commonly so called it certainly was not. Scripture, the supposed authority for the popular belief, rarely speaks of j^hysical death. It uses the language of the material world, but intends spiritual ideas. Concern- ing itself primarily and essentially with the soul of man, what it has to say about his body is but casual. Only in purely biographical notices, as when it is said of Joseph that “he died an hundred and ten years old,’’ and in some few such texts as “it is appointed unto all men once to die,” is physical death ever alluded to, or even compatible with a just and practical interpretation. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” was not a threat that corporeal death should be inflicted; it signifled that, break- ing the commandment, he who had it given him, should lose the high, lovely life which is union with God, and sink into irreligiousness, which is infelicity and disquiet. He died to the true life of the spirit the moment that he tasted; but as to his material body, he continued as he was before. “He begat sons and daughters, and lived nine hundred and thirty years.” Equally unscriptural and groundless is the notion that physical death was even an appendix to the “punish- ment.” Adam would have died had he never fallen, and so would all of his posterity, though none, perhaps, would have died of disease. Death probably would have resembled sinking into an easy and gentle slumber, such as overtakes us wlien agreeably fatigued; it would have been that eutha- nasia to all men which Augustus Caesar used so passionately TESTIMONY OF GEOLOGY. 113 to desire, and which is so beautifully predicated of the Christian in a well-known and lovely hymn: — So fades a summer cloud away, So sinks the gale, when storms are o’er. So gently shuts the eye of day. So dies a wave along the shore. If the Fall bore in any way on physical death, it was in leading to the sensualities which often hurry it on with pain ; and to the violations of the laws of peace and order which make so much of it unhappy and untimely. It is absolutely needful that man should die as to his material body, in order that he may rise into his eternal dwelling. He has faculties which cannot possibly be developed here, and which can only expand in heaven, or under purely spiritual con- ditions, so that it is only by dying that he can become truly himself 63. What Scripture really tells us, is that physical death was not brought into the world by Adam ; and the testimony of the inspired volume is supported by the incontestable evidence of science. Geology proves that the world had been familiar with death for ages before mankind was placed upon it; every fossil in the museums of palseontology is a voucher that mortality and human sin neither had nor pos- sibly could have the least connection ; to suppose otherwise, is to place the effect before the cause. It is a simple evasion to say, in order to reconcile the geological teaching, that it was only man who became subject to death through his moral defection; and that geology does not object to this doctrine. Geology knows but of a single law of life and death.* Assuming, however, that no geological discoveries * See for the arguments set forth by upholders of the notion here repudiated, the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, vol. 4, p. 317. -Inly, 1852. ro 114 DEATH AND PROCREATION CONCURRENT. had ever been made; assuming that no fossil shell or skele- ton had ever been dug up, and that the pre-Adamic condi- tion of the globe were still a secret; the very history of the creation of animals and plants, in the gateway of the Bible, is sufficient to show that physical death is proper and con- genital to nature. The command given both to animals and man to “be fruitful and multiply,” implies the removal of successive races by death ; otherwise the world would long since have been overstocked ; plants, for their ])art, are de- scribed as created “yielding seed,” which carries with it the same inevitable consequence. The produce of so minute a creature as a fly would, if unchecked, soon darken the air, and render whole regions desolate; the number of seeds ripened by a single poppy, were they all to grow and be fruitful in their turn, would in a few years suffice to clothe a continent. Of course it is easy to object, as done by a certain class of reasoners, that this might have been cor- rected by a supplementary “miracle,” but to evade fair philosophical deductions by inventing and ascribing miracles where none are spoken of and none are wanted, is as weak as it is irreverent. God does not perform his work so im- perfectly or short-sightedly as to be obliged to interpose with miracles to set it right; nor are we at liberty to speculate on the possibility of something supernatural in order to escape our difficulties, when to industry and patience nature itself is sufficient. Death, if not an absolutely necessary and inalienable counterpart to procreation, or being fruitful and multiplying; is at least a concomitant of every scene of pro- creation that the world contains, whether animal or vege- table: there is not the slightest reason to suppose that the animals and plants now existing are dissimilar to the first individuals of their respective species, but every reason to believe tliat they resemble in all points, and thus in the power of j)roercating their like: hence may we be assured CAUSES OF DEATH. 115 that with the creation of organized beings came also the limitation of their life. Mankind could be no exception to the rule, as Eve was created before the Fall, and the nuptial benediction pronounced upon herself and consort. 64. The supposition that physical death was introduced by human sin, requires our first parents to have been invid- nerable, No moral state, however exalted, could possibly exempt a race of organized beings such as man, however few in number, and though inhabiting the fairest and safest of material worlds, from the casual injuries of which organi- zation, from its very delicacy, is susceptible. The same fire by which Adam unfallen,’’ must be supposed able to have warmed himself, would have burned him had he approached too near. Had he fallen from a tree, he was in no less dan- ger of a broken limb than ourselves ; had he struck his foot against a stone, he would have been no less easily bruised or cut. From such injuries, he would probably have reco- vered with an ease and rapidity which our present viti- ated state of body debars us from conceiving, though faintly memorialized in the ready cure of the child and the tempe- rate man compared with the tedious and uncertain one of the drunkard ; but that he was not liable to them cannot for an instant be supposed, and if liable to them at all, of course he was susceptible of injuries terrible enough to kill. The more exquisite the capacity for life, always the readier is the liability to injury, as the eye, which holds the highest office in the empire of sense, is the organ most easily hurt and lost. 65. Death has its proximate causes, and its remote causes. The remote causes are thousand-fold ; they are connected, directly and indirectly, with every solid and fluid in the lody, and will only be determined, therefore, when patho- logy shall have become a perfect science. Every organ, and membei, and tissue, is a possible threshold of death, and there is not one by which it may not enter unawares. 116 CAUSES OF DEATH. Oiir life contains a thousand springs, And ends if one start wrong ; Strange that a harp of thousand strings Should keep in tune so long ! The proximate causes, on the otlier hand, are few, and easily understood, being resolvable into the negation of these grand fundamental processes of life which have been described in the preceding chapters. Reduced to their smallest denomination, we saw that the processes in question are the Assimilation of food, and the Respiration of atmo- spheric air. The former we found to have for its main ob- ject, the nourishment of the blood, the organ with which that fluid is pre-eminently identified being the heart Re- spiration we also found concerned with the blood, but iden- tified peculiarly with the kings. To facts, accordingly, con- nected with one or other of these two organs, death, like life, is in all cases proximately referable. We die, proximately, either because the blood has lost energy and volume, or be- cause atmospheric air is insufficiently admitted to it. Po- pularly regarded, death consists simply in loss of breath; and founded as the common idea is, upon external appear- ances, it is not improper thus to speak of it. It always has been, and always will be right to speak of things in our common converse as they appear to the senses. We should always seek to think with the philosopher — to understand what is the genuine truth — but in our ordinary intercourse with one another in daily life, it is proper and expedient to speak of things as they seem; to say, for example, of the sun, thaf it rises.’’ So in the case of the dying. Here, to aj)pearance, the breath only is concerned. The breath, ac- cordingly, do we alone take note of, and further, in truth, we need not look. Wliatever terrible disease may be ra- vaging the frame; whatever paralysis may hold the organs of sense and locomotion in deadly torpor — if there be WHILE THERE IS BREATH, THERE IS LIFE.” 11/ Breathing, we know that all is not over yet. “ While there is life, there is hope,” is only a paraphrase of — while there is breath, there is life. The primary cause of death may date from years before ; it may baffle all physicians and physiology to determine ; but in the final one there is no enigma. ’Tis the cessation of breath ; Silent and motionless we lie, And no one knoweth more than this. I saw our little Gertrude die ; She left off breathing, and no more I smooth’d the pillow beneath her head. She was more beautiful than before. Like violets faded were her eyes. By this we knew she was dead. Through the open window looked the skies Into the chamber where she lay. And the wind was like the sound of wings, As if angels came to bear her away. Wedded to pictures and external shows of things, and inapt to rise from the merely symbolical representations to the holy presence of the thing signified. Pagan antiquity deemed that the breath was the very life itself. So per- suaded were they of the identity, that they even thought that by inhaling the last sighs of their dying friends, to suck the fleeting spirit into their own bodies. Many beauth ful allusions to this occur in the poets: Anna, lamenting over Dido, exclaims as she expires, “And ah! let me catch it with my mouth, if there be yet any stray breath about her lips 1” A collection of the references may be seen in Kirchman, who, in his little book, De Funeribus Romanorum^ devotes a chapter to the superstitions this people connected with the breath of the dying. The elegy of Bion on Adonis contains one of such far higher beauty than any of the Koman poets afibrd, that it is surprising he makes no mention of it, 118 THE BLOOD THE ESSENTIAL SEAT OF. DEATH. Rouse thee a little, Adonis, and again tliis last time kiss me I Kiss me just so far as there is life in thy kiss; till from tliy heart thy spirit shall have ebbed into my lips and my soul, and I shall have drained thy sweet love-potion, and drunk out tliy love ; and I will treasure this kiss, even as it were Adonis himself/^ 66. While legitimate to speak of death as “ceasing to breathe,” we must remember, therefore, that breathlessness is only a part of the idea of death. Ordinarily the circula- tion goes on a little longer, requiring, if death is to be affi- liated on a single event, that it be referred to the heart rather than to the lungs. Slowly and sadly does the blood consent to death; like the tenderness of woman, its ministra- tion is first and last in the history of life; that which was our safety, and stronghold, and delight in our noon-day vigor, in our sunset is still sedulous and faithful. O my love ! my wife ! Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath. Upon thy beauty yet hath had no power : Thou art not conquer’d; beauty’s ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks. And death’s pale flag is not advanced there. Both ideas are right in their own province and connection. It is true that the heart is the last to die ; it is true that the ceasing to breathe is death. The question to be answered is simply, how is death most truly signified, and in what for- mula of words is it most accurately described. Here, we have already seen, there is no mystery. That which in death arrests the attention of the bystander, and tells only too surely that all anxieties and cares are over, is the ex- ternal, visible circumstance, the ceasing to breathe, not the invisible, secret circumstance of the blood ceasing to move; and thus, though the latter may be last in point of time, the former is death ostensibly; and this is sufficient to vin- dicate the expressions summed up in “the breath of life,” the synonym in all ages of vitality. A true idea of the CHOLEKA. 119 cause of death will of course include both circumstances ; whichever occurs first, the other is sure to follow almost im- mediately, just as they are themselves inevitably brought on, though less rapidly and directly, by the stoppage of any other of the vital functions. 67. Essentially, then, death is the devitalizing and disor- ganizing of the Blood. We showed, when speaking of food, that it is from the blood that every tissue and organ of the body is constructed and repaired ; and that as these are con- tinually wasting away, there is a proportionate demand made upon the fountain from which alone they are renew- able. It is obvious that if the needful supply of food for the blood be withheld, the blood itself must diminish and lose in virtue. It becomes too much reduced to circulate vigorously, and to meet the demands of the wasted tissues, and the body gradually withers away. This is most obvi- ously shown in the lingering and miserable death induced by starvation. But it is common also as the result of cer- tain diseases, which prevent the digestive organs from assi- milating a sufficient amount of food to maintain the required quantity and quality of the vital fluid. To deficiencies of this nature may be referred an endless variety of morbid affections, one disease springing from another, as sickness from drinking of poisoned wells. So with death proximately connected with the oxygenation of the blood. If the natural power of breathing be so affected, whether by disease of the respiratory organs, or by mechanical hindrance, as to pre- vent the inspiration of air in sufficient quantity to supply the needful oxygen,- the balance of action between the heart and lungs is upset, and death ensues as surely as in the former case. In cholera, according to one theory of this direful malady, although the blcod circulates freely, and the patient breathes as in health; from some unknown cause connected with the nervous system, the blood fails to 120 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM IN CONNECTION WITH DEATH. become aerated. The discoloration of the body is attributed to its super-carbonized condition.* Not witlioiit reason then, has the blood always been fixmous, and regarded as the very seat of life. Blood and the life have in all ages been con- vertible terms, and justly. In Hades, says Homer, ‘‘ the shades can neither speak, nor recognize the living, except they first drink blood.’’ But it does not ap 2 )ear ever to have been used as a name for life. This has been the prero- gative of the Air, just as the human race, though born of woman, and nourished by her, is proudly called Man. The only approach to such use is in such phrases as to “ shed blood,” meaning to kill; and calling death by the name of ‘‘the sw^ord.” An oath with the ancient Scythians was “by wind and sword,” meaning “by life and death.” The dignity which has in all ages been connected with Bed, as a color, probably owes its ascription, in part at least, to the sanctity of that of which blood is the chief sign and emblem. 68. Violent deaths similarly come either of arrested cir- culation, as in the case of bleeding to death, and death by lightning; or of arrested respiration, as in strangulation, stifling, and suffocation by drowning, or by inhaling noxious vapors, such as the fumes of charcoal. A violent blow on the head, affecting the brain ; or upon the stomach, affecting the ganglionic centres, although unattended by fracture, kills by the shock to the nervous system, which is instanta- neously followed by stoppage both of the circulation and the breathing. Both of these great functions of course require that the nervous system shall be in good order, and * Cholera, say others, appears to kill by separating the serum and the crassamentum of the blood. The former runs off by the bowels ; the latter clogs the minute vessels, and causes the discoloration. Assuming this to be the true theory, it is a no less beautiful illustra- tion that death is induced by the rupture of a complementary dualism. PROXIMATE CAUSES OE DEATH. 121 thus, in tracing death to its profounder causes, we find that we cannot stop till in the presence of that mighty sphynx, the Brain, the fountain of nervous energy to the whole body. What the lungs and heart are to the blood, the lungs and brain are to the nervous fluid, which circulates through the nerves as the blood does through the veins, coexistent and coextensive with it. Any irregularity in the stream, however it may be caused, is attended of course by analogous evils to the system. Denied by some, the exist- ence of this fluid admits nevertheless of demonstration, both from analogy, and by inductions founded on experience. It exists and acts according to laws similar to those which regulate the existence and action of the blood, of which it may be regarded as a higher and more exquisite species. The following table of the proximate causes of death is kindly furnished me by my friend. Dr. Henry Browne, of the Manchester Koyal School of Medicine. It will be seen that he at once recognizes the great division that has been adverted to ; and in the spirit of true philosophy, reconciles what in different authors appear to be conflicting views, though essentially the same. By Bichat By Watson By Alison to the to to the XAsthenia'^ (Strengthlessness) Death is traced -j Head (Nervous System) Coma (Senselessness) Lungs Apnoea — (Breathlessness) Bungs.f * The term asphyxia is often misapplied to breathlessness. Pro- perly, it denotes nothing more than the cessation of the pulse, t See on the proximate causes of death, and its phenomena, as 122 TENACITY OF LIFE IN THE LOWER ANIMALS. 69. Among the inferior animals death is referable to analogous, if not identical hindrances to the due perform- ance of the vital functions. Deprivation of food and air, violent shocks to the nervous system, especially where a brain is present, exposure to severe cold, are among the more frequent causes; one circumstance or another being more quickly and imminently fatal, according to the idiosyncracy of the species. As we travel towards the outermost circles of animal life, conditions which would speedily destroy a human being, a quadruped, or a bird, are borne, however, with astonishing indiflerence. It has often been observed of desperately w^ouuded soldiers, who have nevertheless recovered, that while in most cases nothing is so soon destroyed as human life, in others there is nothing harder to dislodge. Applied to many of the smaller races of the animal world this almost becomes a rule. To say nothing of those extraordinary animalcules which, accord- ing to the experiments of Spallanzani,* may be dried into mummies, kept indefinitely in that state, and then revived ; creatures even so large as insectsf are in many cases nearly proof against the ordinary agents of vital overthrow^ Several extraordinary instances of this may be read in that amusing work ‘‘Episodes of Insect Life,” vol. ii., pp. 162- above briefly set forth, the excellent Outlines of Physiology and Pathology of Dr. Alison. Edinburgh, 1833. * Tracts upon the Nature of Animals, vol. 1, p. xxxvi., &c. f Insects are commonly cited to express ideas of smallness. Bui to innumerable creatures they are what whales and elephants are to ourselves. The animal which holds the middle place in the scale of size, reckoning from the 3fonas crepusculum, the minutest to which our microscopes have yet reached, is the common house-fly. That is, there are as many degrees of size between the house-fly and the Monas, reckoning downwards^ as, reckoning upwards, there are be- tween the house-fly and the whale. CAUSES OF DEATH IN PLANTS. 123 167, &c. It is worthy of note that these latter creatures, like reptiles, can better endure intense heat than intense cold, of which they always stand in dread. Tenacity of life is wonderfully exhibited also in the tortoise family, and in toads, which appear to be capable of living in a state of torpidity for very considerable periods. The stories how- ever, so common in newspapers, of their leaping out of stones when suddenly broken in two, and out of timber when being sawn, seem to be none of them sufficiently authenticated. Many naturalists positively deny that it ever occurs. Experiments made by Dr. Buckland led him to the conclusion that when totally secluded from the access of atmospheric air, these creatures cannot live a year, and that they cannot survive beyond two years if entirely pre- vented from obtaining food. 70. Death purely from old age, whether in man or the inferior animals, is of course not to be confounded with such as comes of accident or disease. Here it is induced by the gradual closing up of delicate vessels; the hardening and ossification of tissues; the languid and imperfect action of important organs. These changes promote others; by and bye some principal part becomes affected, and lastly, where present, the great dualism of heart and lungs. No creature can exist without these changes taking place in it, and superinducing, sooner or later, senility and dissolution. Agerasia belongs only to the soul ; this alone lives in per- petuity of youth. 71. In the Vegetable Kingdom, as in the Animal, death is the stoppage of the process which maintains life. Starva- tion, drought, exposure to intense frost, or to an atmosphere infected with acids and other obnoxious chimney-products, wil] arrest the functions of plant-life as effectually as the opposite conditions encourage them. Plants suffer the more sorely from such influences through their inability to move 124 DEATH IN THE INORGANIC WORLD. away from the place of danger. To compensate this, they are endowed with a tenacity of life far exceeding that of animals, or at least, of animals of equal rank. The stricken quadruped falls never to rise again; the stricken plant buds anew in calm endurance. ‘‘There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch of it will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground ; — yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.” 72. In the mineral world, death is simply Decomposition. All bodies resolve into their elements at the time of death ; but whereas in plants and animals this occurs only as the result and supplement of death, in minerals death and de- composition are the same. Life, we must remember, is expressed in the mineral simply as chemical affinity; — no functions take place in it; death accordingly, consists simply in the setting aside of that affinity. Some stronger affinity coming into operation from without, one or more of the constituent elements is drawn away, and the substance ceases to exist. No mere melting, or crushing, or pulverizing, or modelling by the hands of Art, affects the life of a mineral. Though a piece of marble be ground into impalpable powder, the atoms are living marble still ; every fragment is still animated by the life which holds together its component lime and carbonic acid ; the minutest particle as completely represents and embodies the nature of the original mass as a drop of spray from the advancing wave does that of the sea. Such at least is it to the eye of the chemist To the unversed in his magical science, demolition is annihilation, and in a limited sense, it is not erroneous thus to regard it. Put side by side, the compact and solid stone naturally speaks more of life than the mere heap of scattering dust; the one preserves the chiselled writing of forty centuries, the 1 RUSKIN ON INORGANIC LIFE. 125 other disappears with the first curl of wind. Hence it is that in Scripture, dust is the common name for what is unvitalized or dead; while Stone or Rock, which give the highest possible idea of solidity and permanence, characters the very opposite to those of dust, are the equally common appellations of the Fountain of Life. Mr. Ruskin explains these beautiful metaphors on the principle that with consoli- dation we naturally connect the idea of purity, and with disintegration that of foulness. ‘^The purity of the rock,’’ says he, ‘‘contrasted with the foulness of dust or mould, is expressed by the epithet ‘ living,’ very singularly given to the rock in almost all languages.” Doubtless there is a truth in this, for life and purity, both in the physical and the moral world, are correlative, but as Mr. Ruskin himself acknow- ledges in the next sentence, the deeper reason is the coherence of the particles in the stone, and their utter disunion in the case of the dust. The page is well worth turning to, not merely for the philosophic views on the general subject of inorganic life, but for the admirable commentary on the text that “pureness is made to us so desirable because expressive of the constant presence and energizing action of the Deity in matter, through which all things live, and move, and have their being; and that foulness is painful as the accompani- ment of disorder and decay, and always indicative of the withdrawal of Divine support.”* Neither consolidation nor purity are at all times intended in this remarkable epithet. In Virgil, for example: — Fronte sub adversa scopulis pendentibus antrum; Intus aquae dulces, vivoque sedilia saxo. Nympharum domus . — {JEneid i. 16-18.) “ Opposite is a cave, the retreat of the wood-nymphs, formed by over-hanging rocks; inside are limpid waters, and seats of living stone” 11 * Modern Painters, vol. ii., pp. 73-75. 126 THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS. What then shall be the meaning here? At first sight there is none. But when we bethink ourselves that the cool, hu- mid atmosphere of such sweet natural summer-liouses and grottoes as the poet describes, causes every surface upon which the light can fall to clothe itself with green and most delicate moss, in an instant the words bcc ome animated and picturesque, we hear the trickling waters, and feel ourselves sheltering from the fervid noonday sun, each great stone a living cushion for our repose. The characteristic of true poetry is, that by single words thus artlessly introduced, it awakens all the most beautiful memories and associations of the heart. 73. Hitherto we have spoken of inorganic compounds. The life of the simple substances, the fifty or sixty primitive elements, or as-yet-undecompounded bodies, is much less precarious. When, under chemical agency, a compound is broken up, though the mass ceases to be, the constituents are in no wise affected. As in the crowding together of a multitude of men for some great social or political object, though it is the assemblage which attracts our attention, every member of it has an interior, unnoticed life of his own, so is it with the several elements which in combination form the acid or the salt. The compound has one life, the elements have another ; and as the individuals which com- pose the meeting live on, though the meeting itself dissolves and dies with the conclusion of the business that brought it together, so do the simple elements of destroyed compounds ; they separate, not to perish, but to enter upon new activi- ties. Though several even of the most solid of the simple substances may, under the influence of heat, be volatilized and altogether dissipated, zinc and potassium for instance among the metals, no one can say that any one of these substances is destructible absolutely, No one can assert that like iodine vaporized and condensed in a Florence flask, or THE PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS. 127 like camphor in a glass jar (which evaporates only to de- scend again in glittering frost-work), they do not consolidate afresh. That they would do so we should certainly expect, though it is quite as likely that when so attenuated, new changes and decompositions come into process, causing them to return to the eyes of men in the form of some other pri- mitive element f for, as we saw in our second chapter, it is not only possible, but extremely probable, that all the so- called primitive elements are but different presentations of two fundamental ones, their respective atoms being variously associated, and giving us oxygen, gold, silex, &c., in turn, according to the nature of the union. For anything we can tell, the identical oxygen, gold, silex, &c., of the primseval world, are still in being, though in the course of ages they may have undergone innumerable vicissitudes. For aught we know, on the other hand, the primaeval gold, silver, &c., may in great measure have perished, and as many repro- ductions have occurred in the secret but mighty laboratory of inorganic nature, as there have been procreations of plants and animals in its organic realm. CHAPTER VIII. THE VAJIIOUS EEASES OF ElEE, 74. Though death is the universal end, nothing is more curiously varied than the Lease of existence. The present chapter will be devoted to the consideration of what is cer- tainly one of the most interesting mysteries in the economy of life — the question, why do things live for determinate periods ? AVe do not mean, why do certain individuals die earlier than others of their kind, as when infants and young people are removed by death ; but why does the ordinary maximum of age vary so immensely in regard to the differ- ent species of things ; why do some come to maturity and perish in less than a year, while others endure for three, four, ten, twenty, a hundred, even for thousands of years? For that the duration of the different species of animals and plants is thus determinate, is certain ; every one of them has a lease of life peculiar to itself, though true that in the greater part the exact term remains yet to be ascertained. Did we know the minute history of horse and lion, thrush and pelican, antelope and red-breast; were we intimately acquainted with the natural constitution of each brute and bird, the duration of the different species of the organized creation would unquestionably allow of being tabulated as exactly as the daily rising and setting of the sun. We might anticipate such a fixity of duration from the deter- minate character of everything else which concerns living beings. J^lvery S2)eci('s of animal and plant has its deter- 128 FIXED LEASES OF LIFE UNIVERSAL. 129 minate form, size, and organization ; the period of gestation, though it differs widely in the aggregate of the animal king- dom, is invariably the same in the same species ; similarly, the growing of seeds, which is vegetable incubation, and the period of the flowering of plants, are in any given species uniformly the same ; it is but reasonable then to expect that there are definite leases of existence, and observation proves the opinion to be well-founded. Under hostile conditions, the allotted periods of duration may doubtless be greatly shortened, as experience shows us every day, while under favorable ones they may sometimes be surprisingly extended. As in the human species, mortality cuts down myriads before puberty, while now and then we are called to wonder at an Old Parr, so in all other tribes of being, though the unusual longevity is perhaps never so great in proportion. Making all allowance for such exceptions, and giving everything fair judgment, it still comes true that there is a fixed lease which the mass of the healthy individuals of the species attain, and beyond which the life of the mass is seldom prolonged. Whether all or any living things at present reach, even in exceptional cases, the full term of life originally allotted to their race, it is impossible to know — the probability would seem that few, perhaps none, reach their intended maximum, except an individual here and there. That individuals do sometimes prodigiously outlive their generation, certainly does not seem explicable on any supposition but that in the longaevals the native capacity is fully realized. We ought perhaps to consider enormous ages less as exceptions to the rule than as revelations of the lease with which the species is potentially gifted by the Almighty. Thus, if a certain percentage of mankind live to a hundred and fifty, and a certain percentage of horses to sixty, are not these ages to be esteemed the terms respectively prescribed in the begin- ning? Very little is yet known with certainty as to the 130 WIDELY VARYING LEASES OF LIFE. periods of life ordinarily attained. Beyond some broad, general peculiarities in the larger classes of living things, and tolerably correct statistics respecting the animals man is most familiar with, and the shortest and longest lived plants, scarcely anything precise has yet been arrived at. The literature of natural history is almost barren upon the subject; physiologists generally dismiss it in a paragraph. Buffon is the most copious in detached observations; the best summary, brief though it be, is contained perhaps in the admirable and celebrated little treatise of Hufeland.* The recently published work of the eminent Parisian savant Flourens,f to which attention has been so largely attracted in intelligent circles, sets forth a masterly doctrine on the relation between the period of attaining maturity and the duration of life, amending the well-known theory of Buffon, and placing it on a sound physiological basis ; but in other respects it has little really new. The whole subject is thus in its infancy. The profounder and more interesting ques- tion, or part of the question, namely, why the divine lease of life varies so widely; why, for example, the rabbit is ordained to live for only eight years, while the dog is al- lowed to run on to twenty-four ; why the wheat-plant fruits and dies in a few months, while the cedar is appointed to watch the lapse of centuries ; this appears wholly untouched, probably from its involving a spiritual idea, usually the last to be considered, though the first in importance and illu- minating power. That there is a reason for the various duration of life, we may be sure ; there can be nothing acci- * The Art of Prolonging Life, excellently edited, in one volume, by Erasmus Wilson, 1853. f On Human Longevity, and the amount of Life upon the Globe. From the French, by Charles Martel, 1855. NO LEASES IN THE MINERAL KINGDOM. 131 dental or capricious about it ; what that reason may be, is a magnificent problem for Christian philosophy. 75. The question applies of course only to organized beings, at least in its fulness. In minerals, for reasons already amply stated, duration is altogether irregular and indeterminate. Ruled wholly by contingencies, no scale of existence can be drawn up with regard either to simple or to compound bodies. It cannot be said that the diamond averages so many years; gold so many more; flint so many less. The same with any composite substance, as a lump of marble, or a mass of common salt; it lives as long as it is not assailed by the particular chemical agencies which would decompose it, and which nothing in the substance itself can repel: it is liable to them from the first moment of its exist- ence, and may thus be extinguished in an hour, or enjoy a kind of immortality, conditional on its seclusion from them. How vast the antiquity of many a little pebble, yet how slender the tenure of its existence, which a few drops of acid would overthrow in as few minutes! It is to be observed, however, that, as if in prefiguration of the higher kingdoms of nature — a beautiful subject, hereafter to be illustrated at length — in the more exquisite and delicate developments of the mineral world, or crystals, there are species that actually seem subject to a kind of natural and organic dissolution. After arriving at what may be esteemed a kind of maturity, certain crystals decompose, (of course under the influence of new conditions at variance with those under which they were formed,) and decaying, give curious skeletons of what they were in the bloom of their existence. Such relics are found in mines, often with crystals of different composition forming amid the ruins of the extinct one, just as on the shoulders of an ancient oak we may sometimes see sapling trees of other species, the products of seeds carried thither by some bird or wafting wind, and which have fat- 132 LEASE OF LIFE IN PLANTS. tened on its decaying heart. Vary the text-word to suit the especial theme, and there is no part of creation to which those fine philosophic verses of Pope’s will not apply : — See dying vegetables life sustain, And life dissolving, vegetate again; All forms that perish, other forms supply ; By turns we catch the vital breath, and die. There is no essential difference between the violent death of the crystal in the laboratory of the chemist, and the quasi- natural in the mine; only in the latter the idea of deter- minate duration seems first to reveal itself. 76. To obtain clear and comprehensive ideas respecting the duration of life, it is requisite that a tolerable acquaint- ance should be formed with the particular circumstances and phenomena of vital action, also with a fair number of the species of things. No true advance can be made in any department of the philosophy of nature while we rest in such generalities as beasts, birds, and fishes; we must learn ^eeies minutely and accurately, watching them from season to season, and from year to year, and penetrating, as far as possible, into their anatomy. None are better for this pur- pose, or so good, as our own common native plants, and wild animals, winged and wingless, with which we can so readily become familiar, and ignorant of which no one can pretend to the name of naturalist. With such knowledge in hand, the further steps can be taken pleasantly and safely, but not before. We shall consider, primarily, the phenomena connected with the duration of life in the Vege- table Kingdom, seeing that this is essentially the outline and prefigurernent of the Animal, and thus the natural starting- point of all high physiological inquiry. 77. No one has entered Nature through its “gate Beauti- ful,” the world of i)lants, without soon discovering that the LONGEVITY OF TREES. 133 duration of life is here of three general denominations. Some species are annual, or rather semi-annual, living from spring only to the close of the autumn of the same year ; others are biennial, living to the close of the second autumn, but never beyond it; the greater part are perennial, or com- petent to live for a long series of years. Annuals include many of the commoner garden flowers and culinary vege- tables, as marigolds and lupines, peas and beans, which re- quire accordingly to be freshly raised from seed every season : biennials are likewise common in gardens : perennials com- prise all those plants which form the staple vegetation of a country, withering to a certain extent in the winter, and even dying down to the roots, but sprouting afresh with the return of spring; also the countless varieties of trees and shrubs, whether deciduous or ever-green. The perennials exhibit as great diversity in lease of life as the different species of animals. Some decay in as few as four or five years; others, often remarkable for their odoriferous and balsamic qualities, as sage, balm, and lavender, endure for ten or more; next come the larger and robuster kinds of shrubs, as rhododendrons and azaleas ; then such trees as are of rapid growth, and the substance of which is soft, as the poplar and willow; and lastly, those mighty, slow-growing, solid-wooded pillars of the forest, as the cedar and oak, at whose feet whole nations rise and fall.* “Non hiemes illam, non flabra, neque imbres Convellunt; immota manet, multosque per annos Multa virum volvens durando secula vincit * There are olive-trees in the supposed garden of Gethsemane which have been estimated at two thousand years ; but these are probably mere descendants of those which are connected with the narratives of the Gospels, put forth originally as suckers from their roots, and thus to be regarded rather as restorations than as iden- tically the same. 12 134 DATA FOR ASCERTAINING AGES. TIow vast are the periods of life allotted to the longa 3 val trees may be judged from the following list of ages known to have been reached by patriarchs of the respective kinds : — Cercis Wnlriiit. 900 Elm 335 Oriental Plane .. . 1000 years, u Ivy 450 “ Lime . 1100 u INIaple 516 Spruce . 1200 (i Larch 576 Oak . 1500 ii Orange 630 '' Cedar . 2000 u Cypress 800 “ Schubert i a . 3000 (C o Olive GO O O Yew . 3200 (( Four and five thousand years are assigned to the Taxodium and the Adansonia, and Von Martins describes Locust-trees in the South American forests which he believes to have begun their quasi-immortality in the days of Homer. Whether or no, it may safely be asserted that the world possesses at this moment living memorials of antiquity at least as old as the most ancient monuments of human art. How grand and solemn is even the thought of a tree coeval with the pyramids of Egypt and the sculptures of Nineveh, yet still putting forth leaves, and inviting the birds to come and ‘^sing among the branches!” Well might the old preacher of Alexandria discern in a tree the terrestrial image of heavenly truth. 78. The way in which the ages of these vegetable Nestors have been ascertained leaves no doubt of their correctness. In some few cases the data have been furnished by historical records, and by tradition; but the botanical archaeologist has a resource independent of either, and when carefully uscid, infallible. The whole subject of the signs and testi- monies of particular age is interesting, and deserves to be here dealt with, but unfortunately scarcely anything is yet known about it. The deficiency is much to be regrettal, DATA FOR ASCERTAINING AGES. 135 seeing that it is often of serious importance to the interests of society that means should be possessed for determining the exact period of a given life. The most important of all, the data whereby the age of one of our own species may be determined, are as yet altogether undiscovered. Though long habits of social intercourse may enable us to guess pretty nearly, by the altered form of the features, wrinkles where once was smoothness, changes in the color and luxu- riance of the hair, also in the gait and general physical exterior, still it is only a guess; we cannot be sure until we have consulted the register or the family Bible. With the lower animals it is a little easier; the age of the horse, for instance, to about eight or nine years old, may be told by its teeth ; the horns of certain quadrupeds similarly announce their ages up to a given epoch; in birds the age may some- times be deduced from the wear and altered form of the bill; in the whale it is known by the size and number of the laminae of whale-bone,’’ which increase yearly, and seem to indicate a maximum of three or four hundred years to this creature; the age of fishes appears to be marked on their scales, as seen under a microscope; and that of molluscous animals, such as the oyster, in the strata of their shells; still, there is no certain and connected knowledge in refer- ence to any but the first-named, and even this applies only to the youth of the animal. Of all the forms of nature. Trees alone disclose their ages candidly and freely. In the stems of all trees which have branches, that is to say, in all “Exogens,” the increase takes place by means of an annual deposit of wood, spread in an even layer upon the surface of the preceding one. Tlie deposits commence the first sum- mer of the tree’s existence, and continue as long as it sur- vives; hence, upon taking a horizontal section of the stem, a set of beautiful concentric circles becomes visible, each circle indicating an annual deposit, and thus marking a year 136 VARIOUS RATE OF GROWTH IN TREES. in the biography of the general mass. So much for the felled tree; in the living and standing one of course the circles are concealed from view; to learn their number here, therefore, some ingenuity is required. The simplest and most certain method is to burrow into the trunk with an instrument like an immense cheese-taster, which intersects every layer, and draws out a morsel of each, sufficiently dis- tinct for enumeration. Where this is not convenient, the age may be estimated by ascertaining, as nearly as possible, the annual rate of increase, then taking the diameter of the trunk at about a yard from the ground, and calculating by ‘‘rule of three.’’ Thus, if in the space of an inch there be an average of five annual layers, a hundred inches will an- nounce five hundred years of life. The latter method requires to be used, however, with extreme caution, because of the varying rate of growth, both in individual trees, and in their different species. In the earlier periods of life, trees increase much faster than when adult; the oak, for instance, grows most rapidly between its twentieth and thirtieth years ; and when old, the annual deposits considerably diminish, so that the strata are thinner, and the rings proportionately closer. Some trees slacken in rate of growth at a very early period of life; the layers of the oak become thinner after forty, those of the elm after fifty, those of the yew after sixty. Unless allowance be made for this, and also for the irregular thickness of the layers, which vary both with seasons and with the position of the tree in regard to the sun, errors are inevitable. The concentric circles are not equally distinct in the different kinds of trees ; the best examples occur per- haps in the cone-bearers, as the fir, cedar, and pine. The opinion not infrequently held, that the trees of cold and temj)crate countries show them better than those of the tropics, is, however, a mistaken one. Certainly there are equinoctial woods in which they are less decidedly marked PALM TREES. 137 tlian in particular European species, but in others again they are plainer. Indistinctness and emphasis in the rings are phenomena independent of climate, being characteristic, in fact, of particular species, genera, and even families. There are trees which are altogether destitute of rings. These belong to the class called Endogens,” of which the noblest and typical form is the Palm. Plere the sign of age is furnished by the scars or stumps of the fallen leaves, which are of enormous size, few in number, and produced only upon the summit of the lofty, slender, branchless trunk. A certain number of new leaves expand every year, and about an equal number of the oldest decay, so that by taking the total of the scars, and dividing it by the average annual de- velopment of new leaves, a tolerable approximation may be come to. But it can rarely be relied upon; it is a method indeed by no means universally practicable, the scars of the fallen leaves being very variable in their degree of perma- nence in different species. The fan-leaved palms preserve their scars only at the lowest part of the stem; they lose them as they increase in age and height, so that from the middle to the top it is nearly bare. Sternberg says that the fossil Lepidodendra are the only plants in which the scars remain perfect throughout the entire length. Wood-sections, neatly cut and polished, so as to display the concentric circles, are highly ornamental objects, independently of their scientific instructiveness. A collection of specimens from the lopped boughs of the hedgerows and plantations, and from the timber-yard of the furniture-maker, where many rich exotics may be procured, rivals in beauty a cabinet of shells or fossils, and quite as abundantly rewards intelligent employment of the leisure hour. 79. Of the potential longevity of a tree or plant, a pretty fair estimate may be arrived at from a variety of circum- stances. For example, there are relations between the 12 138 FRUITFULNESS IN RELATION TO LONGEVITY. duration of life and the quality of the fruit^which plants produce. Those which give tender and juicy fruit, or at all events such trees as do this, are in general shorter-lived than those which yield hard and dry, and these are shorter-lived than such as produce only little seeds. The apple and the pear live shorter lives than nut-trees, which are out-lived in turn by the birch and the elm, as these are by the major part of the Conifera), in which long-lived family there is probably not a species that does not flourish for at least a hundred years. The Alpine firs and larches frequently attain five centuries, and even the common red pine and the Scotch fir reach three to four. With a few exceptions, the seeds of the whole family are noticeably small, though the containing cones may be of considerable size. One of the greatest trees in the world, the Wellingtonia gigantea of California, a member of this tribe, with an estimated maxi- mum age of two thousand years, has a beautifully-formed but remarkably small cone, and seeds in proportion. Such trees as the birch, the elm, and the conifers, are useful to man for their timber, a service rarely rendered by the fruit- bearers. Trees again, that yield pleasant fruit, fit for human food, ordinarily live for shorter periods than those of which the produce is bitter and austere, and unserviceable to him as an edible. Most, if not all of the plants on which man in his civilized state depends for food, are exceedingly short- lived. The Cerealia or corn-producing plants, as wheat, rice, barley, and oats, are annuals without exception ; so are nearly all kinds of pulse. The large classes of esculent vegetables represented by the turnip, carrot, and cabbage, are also either annual or biennial. How much man has bcnciittcd by tliis wise arrangement it is impossible to esti- mate. Did liis daily bread grow on longceva] trees, like acorns, asking no care and toil, tlie most efficient means to Ills development would have been wanting, as i^ still evi- BULK IN RELATION TO LONGEVITY. 139 denced in the lands of the cocoa-nut and banana ; but de- pending, as he has been so largely obliged to do, on annual plants, demanding incessant care, they may be gratefully regarded as the prime instrument of his rise in intelligence and morals. 80. The form or configuration of plants has most im- portant relations with their lease of life. Those trees usually live to the greatest age which attain the least vertical height in proportion to the diameter of their trunks, and tl^e lateral spread of their branches. Size and substance have also to be taken note of. Small and attenuate plants almost always live for shorter periods than bulky ones, and tender and delicate species than the stout and hard-grained. The latter owe their longer lives, in a physiological point of view, to the abundance of firm, fibrous matter which enters into their composition, and without which it appears indeed impos- sible that any considerable age can be arrived at, though there are instances where hard and durable wood is found in trees of briefer life than some that are soft-wooded. The lime-tree has softer wood than the w^alnut, beech, and pear, yet lives longer than either of them; and the Baobab of Senegal, which undoubtedly lives to a great age, though some of the accounts of it are probably exaggerated, is said to be so soft that it may be sliced with a knife. That bulk should be accompanied by long duration, it is easy to under- stand. The larger a plant or tree, the greater is the surface which it exposes to the atmosphere; and as it feeds by every leaf, the scope and opportunity for the exercise of the vital functions is proportionately extended. The more leaves a tree can put forth, and maintain in healthy action, the firmer is its hold upon the future. Viewed in regard to their an- nual rejuvenescence, trees may be regarded as little worlds in themselves, — solid masses from which a multitude of separate and perfect plants is vernally put forth, every new 140 TEXTURE IN RELATION TO LONGEVITY. 1 shoot and twig being exactly analogous to an annual that has risen from a seed. As the successive generations of plants fill the earth more and more with the seeds of life, and thus both maintain its actual richness in verdure and blossom, and enlarge its potential, in reference to years to come, so the annual crops of twigs and leaves that clothe the tree, by their re-action tend to consolidate and strengthen it. The more exuberant its fertility, the more does it aug- ment in energy of life, — picturing therein, one of the finest truths in our spiritual history; the soul energizes as it works. But extent of leafy surface will not of itself induce longevity. There are many annuals that develope an immense amount of leaf, as the gourd and the melon. In such plants, it is counteracted by their exceedingly rapid growth, and conse- quent want of solidity; for while too great a degree of solidi- fication of the tissues, whether in plants or animals, hinders their proper vital activity, especially those great processes on which life so eminently depends, namely, the free move- ment of the juices, — the other extreme, or a too lax and succulent texture, is no less surely fatal to stability and en- durance. Such texture is almost always found in the short- lived plants, coming, as in the gourd, of their rapid exten- sion, Avhile firm, dense, and compact texture is fully as characteristic of the longsevals. Compare the wood of the yew and the box-tree with that of the soft, sappy black poplar, and the willows that ‘^spring by the water-courses.’’ Fungi, mushrooms, and toadstools, which, as regards their superterraneous portion, are the most rapid in development of any plants, often reaching their full size in the course of a night, arc also the loosest in texture, and the soonest and speediest to dissolve. Some decay in a few hours ; while none, perhaps, last longer than from seven to fifteen days, except- ing the perennial I\)lypori and their congeners, the life of which extends to several years. Beautiful specimens of CLIMATE AND LONGEVITY. 141 these last, of a rich and glossy brown, have been sent to me from New Brunswick, where they grow upon the birch and maple trees. 81. The distinction of annual, biennial, and perennial, in regard to the duration of plants, is liable to be affected by certain accidents, but the changes are never so great or so deeply-seated as for the principle of a fixed lease of life to be abnegated by them. An inhospitable climate will shorten the life of perennials to a single season, as happens with mignonette, which in Barbary is shrub-like, and with the Palma-Christi, which in India is a stately tree, though in England neither survives a year in the open air; on the other hand, unsuitable food, excess of wet, or any other cir- cumstance by which the flowering of the plant is retarded, will induce unaccustomed longevity. This brings us to the consideration of one of the greatest truths in the philosophy of nature, namely, that all living things exist, and feed, and grow, and gather strength, in order that they may propagate their race. Doubtless, things universally have their social uses to subserve, and to perform which they were originally created, and are sustained in their respective places by the Almighty; but all these uses have reference, essentially, to the great ultimate use of preserving the race extant upon the earth, and multiplying it indefinitely, seeing that in the maintenance and multiplication without end of receptacles of His Life, consists the highest glory of God. This is the end and design not only of the physical, but even of the moral and intellectual uses performed by mankind towards one another, all of them tending, more or less directly, to promote and adorn it. However unconscious we may be of their influence and private agency, and however little we may feel ourselves to be personally identified with the result, the perpetuation of the race is at once the beginning and the end of all the feelings incident to our nature. What- 142 DEATH BALANCED BY BEPBODUCTION. ever we may seem to ourselves to be working for, the secret aspiration of the heart is always Home and one’s own fire- side, bright and sweet with filial conjugal affection; every virtue, desire, and passion, that stirs the soul, may finally be referred hither; in a word, whatever is friendly to humanity, in any of its needs, whatever gives life and solidity to ex- istence, is a collateral means to reproduction, and was pur- posely introduced to aid it, and without such aid reproduc- tion would languish and at last fiil. Why reproduction is the great end of pliysical existence, is found in its needful- ness as the counterpoise of Death. As the destiny of all things is to die, were there no means estal)lished for their replacement, the earth would soon become a desolate void; but through the magnificent law of procreation, nothing is ever extinguished, nor a gap ever caused that is not instantly filled up. Though Time slays and devours every individual in turn, whether animal or plant ; by procreation the species is preserved perfect and immortal, the whole of nature un- changed and ever young. States fall, Arts fade, but Nature doth not die ! By the continual succession of beings, all exactly resembling one another, and their parents and ancestors, the existence of any one of them is virtually maintained in perjoetuity ; the balance and the relations of the different parts of nature are kept intact, and to philosophic view. Time itself, rather than the temporal, is the slain one. Thus looked at, with the eyes of a large philosophic generalization, all the indi- viduals of any given species that- have ever existed, and all that have yet to come into existence, form but one great Whole ; the process of reproduction whereby they follow one another in the stream that unites the living representa- tives to the primaeval Adam of the race, being only Nutri- tion on a grand and perennial scale. Every individual, so REPEODUCTION THE END OF LIFE. 143 long as it lives its little life, is the species m miniature, reproducing all its tissues as fast as they decay, through vital action and reaction, or marriage in its simj^lest form ; conversely, the aggregate of the individuals, or the race, is as it were a single one, diffused over an immense area of time and country, and nourishing and regenerating itself by means of that highest and most complicated play of the marriage-principle which the word marriage popularly de- notes. Every man, for example, and every woman, con- sidered physiologically, is the human race in little, every- thing that belongs to the race being enacted, essentially and daily, in their individual bodies ; at the same moment every man and every woman is but as a molecule of one great Homo, now some six thousand years of age, and spread over the whole surface of the earth. 82. Feeding, growing, all the vital functions and phe- nomena of the earlier stages of life are to be regarded accordingly, as Nature’s preliminaries to Reproduction. Every part of organic creation illustrates this, but in the plant it is seen in chief perfection, excepting only the but- terfly, in whose little life the history is epitomized. In the first or grub state, it is a creeping cormorant; the alimentary organs greatly predominate, and growth is rapid. In the last or winged state, on the other hand, though it sips from a thousand blossoms, it takes little or no sustenance, the excess of intestinal canal has given way to the generative organs, which now assume the mastery, and up to the time of its early death, influence almost exclusively its habits. Many kinds of butterflies cannot eat indeed, if they would, for they have no months. Adorned in their bridal vestments, love and pleasure, as they flirt their painted fans, form the brief and brilliant pastime with which they close their days. The winged state of the butterfly is what the period of flowering is to plants, and the reason why longer life is 144 PROLONGATION OF VEGETABLE LIFE. occasioned to plants by delay in flowering, as above alluded to, is that in the flowers are contained their organs of pro- creation. Hence until they have bloomed they must needs remain childless, or with the consummation of life unreal- ized and nnattained. Procreation, or the production of seed, is made to actuate plants with a vital impulse so wonderful and so like the instinct of animals towards the same end, that no other name conveys an adequate idea of it; they prepare for the effectuation of it from the first moment of existence, and until they have accomplished their purpose, unless killed by intense cold, or sudden and absolute deprivation of nourishment, will keep their hold on life with a tenacity almost invincible. It may be taken as an axiom in vegetable physiology, that cceteris paribus, no plant dies a natural death till it has ripened seeds. If its life be endangered, by penury of food or mutilation, the entire vital energy of the plant concentrates itself in the production of a flower, it ceases to put forth leaves, and expends its whole force in efforts to secure progeny. This is strikingly exemplified in hot, dry gardens, and by sum- mer waysides, where, as if conscious of the impending danger, plants ordinarily of considerable stature, begin to propagate while scarcely an inch high. Delay in flowering, attended by prolonged life, is usually the result of excess of nourishment. Thus, if a plant grow in too luxurious, or too watery a soil, causing it to become unduly succulent, or if it be subjected to an atmosphere too warm for it, and thus unnaturally stimulated, instead of producing flowers, it runs to leaf f it passes into the condition of an over- fattened or pampered animal, and is similarly unfitted for the reproductive function ; and like the animal again, to re-enter upon it, must become deplethoric. No plant can suffer from phyllomania and be fruitful at the same moment. Diclinous plants, when growing in wet localities, are re- PROLONGATION OF VEGETABLE LIFE. 145 markable for the excess of male flowers over female. De- lay in flowering and consequent prolongation of life beyond the usual limit, also occur through insufficiency of nourish- ment, and want of kindly climatic aid. Many plants live longer in our gardens than in their native countries simply for want of the encouragement to blossom which they are accustomed to at home. In Mexico the great American Aloe comes into bloom when four or five years old, and then dies, while in England it drags a kind of semi-torpid exist- ence for so long before the flowers appear, that it is a pro- verb for a hundred years’ preparation. Some plants may have their lives prolonged a little while by nipping off the flowers as soon as they begin to fade. Here, however, so much of the vital energy has been expended in the produc- tion of the floral organs, that they never properly recover themselves. Yv^hen the flowers of a plant, under cultiva- tion, become double ; that is, when they have their repro- ductive organs changed into petals, and are thereby pre- vented from seeding, their life is considerably prolonged; annuals even become perennial ; Tropoeolum minus, when double, has endured for twelve years. The life of annuals may also be prolonged by grafting them upon perennials. Many annual Solanaceie will live for years when grafted on ligneous species of the same genus, as the annual kinds of Tobacco, when grafted on the Nicotiana glauca, that beau- tiful woody species which grows to a greater height than a man. A similar extension of life may be given to some of the annual species of Dianthus. Lastly, as regards the relation of procreation to the lease of life, it is a universal law, both in animals and plants, that the earlier the ])uberty, the earlier is the death. Annuals, which flower when only a few weeks old, die in a few months ; those plants only live long which do not blossom till their fifth or sixth year ; the highest ages invariably j^ertain to those whicli are the 33 (J 146 RESULTS OF CULTURE. slowest to celebrate their nuptials. Very young forest trees are never found in flower. 83. Many of the conditions which affect the duration of vegetable life, are thus results or accompaniments of Culti- vation. The object of cultivation is, for the most part, gre^tter fridtfubiess ; few plants are cultivated merely for the sake of their wood or foliage ; the aim is to procure either more flowers to delight us with their beauty, or more seeds to make use of as food. In either case, the stimulation which they receive at the hands of the gardener tends to hasten them on towards maturity, and to excite the repro- ductive energy to the utmost. The consequence is that the conservative power is reduced, and the organism prema- turely exhausted. Cultivation, therefore, as a rule, may be regarded as a shorten er of plant-life. Of course it is only the life of the individual that is abbreviated ; the absolute lease of life in the species is unaltered and unalterable, and is completed wherever the individuals enjoy their existence unmolested. 84. The result of one of the arts of culture makes it seem as if there were no such thing as a fixed lease of life in plants, viz., the art of propagation by slips and cuttings, which, when, carefully detached and placed in the soil, will grow into counterparts of the original, and (they themselves being extensible after the same manner) effect for it a kind of perpetuity. Vines of the time of the Koman empire, have been thus transmitted to the present day, gifted as it were, by man with a longevity unknown to their^ state of nature. Many herbaceous perennials, especially in gardens, possess in this aptitude such ample and efficient means of j)ropagation as to incline to the belief that their flowers and seeds arc of quite secondary importance, dedicated rather to the heart and appetite of man. The lily of the valley, for example, and the strawberry. INDIVIDUALITY OF PLANTS 147 85. To see how this curious phenomenon harmonizes with the indubitable law of specific lease, we have to consider the peculiar structure or organic composition of plants, and, as flowing from this latter, the nature and amount of their in- dividuality. The organic composition of a plant is very different from that of an animal. In all except the very lowest forms of animals, there is but one of each kind of or- gan, or of each set of organs, as the case may be, as one heart, one mouth, one set of limbs, one system of bones. Every organ is more or less in connection with every other, and not one of those which are preeminently ^WitaE’ can be removed without causing instant death to the whole fabric. The animal, in a word, is an absolute Unity, every part being reciprocally dependent upon every other part, and the springs of its life centralized. In the tree, on the other hand, there is no centralization ; no organ occurs only once ; everything is a thousand times recapitulated ; there are as many lungs as there are leaves, as many procreant parts as flowers. Like an arborescent zoophyte, a Sertu- laria, for example, a tree is a vast congeries of distinct or- ganisms, every one of them as independent of the others as one sheep is independent of the remainder of the flock, only that all are organically united, and contribute, by their union, to the general welfare, and to the building up of a magnificent social edifice. Every separate twig is a little plant in itself; consociated with the others, but still inde- pendent of them, it feeds, grows, and procreates in its own person. A tree, therefore (and any plant old enough to have thrown out buds and shoots), is at once an Individual and a Community. It is an Individual in respect of its presentation of the physiognomy and characters of the spe- cies, the form, the altitude, and the gracefulness or robust dignity ; aiso as standing alone, and dying at the expiration of an allotted term ; it is a Community in respect of its consist- 148 TREES ARE INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIES. ing of innumerable minor trees. So long as the constituent twigs remain seated on the bough, they are subject to the laws and vicissitudes of the general mass, sharing its life, and dying when it dies ; detached from it, every one of them is competent to strike root, and by degrees become the pillar of another such edifice. A fuchsia may be multiplied into a hundred, in the course of a single season, without destroy- ing the original stem ; and every one of these hundred may, three years afterwards, be multiplied into as many more. Such division of one organism into many is possible only where the fountains of life are not centralized — where there are neither brain nor heart, the means and tokens of con- centration ; hence it is practicable as regards the animal kingdom only in those humble tribes from which these or- gans appear to be absent, and the nature of which approxi- mates to that of plants. The analogy, we may add, be- tween trees and the arborescent zoophytes is in various other ways most curious and attractive. Here we cannot do more than advert to their wonderful correspondence in respect to the longevity of the general mass. Ehrenberg judges that certain enormous corals which he saw" in the Red Sea, and parts of which are still tenanted by working polyps, were alive in the time of the Pharaohs, and have been growing and enlarging ever since. Others, of equally vast age, have been observed in the waters of tropical America. 86. Dr. Harvey, in his most ingenious little book on Trees and their Nature,’’ revives the hypothesis originally propounded by De La Hire, and subsequently held by Dar- win, Mirbel, Du Petit Thouars, Gaudichaud, and others, that a tree is merely a mechanical and passive structure, as regards the trunk and woody portions, these serving simply to support the annual twigs, and to allow the passage of fluids to and from the latter, by exosmose and other physi- PHYSIOGNOMY OF TREES. 149 cal and chemical laws. The tree, in its totality, he views, with these authors, simply as a collection of living yet per- fectly distinct annual tree-plants, the produce of the year, and of the dead remains of a still larger number, the pro- duce of preceding years ; the living plants evolved from buds, and growing as parasites on the organic remains of the dead plants. According to this view, the stem has no intrinsic vitality ; and all plants w^hatever are annuals, those commonly so called differing from such as grow on trees merely bj^ having their connection directly with the soil, in- stead of indirectly through a woody pillar. A corollary is that there is no natural limit either to the life of trees, or to their size. Schleiden holds similar opinions. After citing examples of old trees, he observes : — These examples are quite sufficient to prove the probability of a compound plant living on without end. These plants die ordinarily in consequence of mechanical injuries. A storm breaks off a branch ; the broken surface is exposed to the action of rain-water; decay takes place; the firmness of the heart- w^ood becomes affected ; a new storm casts the whole tree to the ground, separates the trunk from the roots, and it per- ishes of hunger.’’ (‘^Principles of Scientific Botany,” p. 538.) Let us see how this consists with facts. Every spe- cies of tree, like every species of animal, has its definite con- figuration and physiognomy, by which we recognize it whether covered with leaves or in the bareness of winter, and attains, under fair circumstances, a certain maximum size and height. Neither of these would be the case were the tree gifted with indefinite powers of life. The period of the culmination of the life of a tree is that when it shows its perfect and characteristic outline ; and this being acquired, though for awhile there may be little change in aspect, and though crops of new twigs may be annually produced for 150 MR. knight’s theory OF TREES. some years, declension as inevitably follows as with a man after he has reached his ineridian. 87. Thus indejDcndent — actually as regards themselves, potentially as regards the tree — healthy cuttings are equiva- lent to seedlings. Strictly without doubt, the new individu- als procured by taking slips from a given plant, are but portions of it, since those plants alone can legitimately be called new which come from seed. There are no absolute beginnings anywhere in nature except as the direct produce of sexuality. To view them, however, with Mr. Knight, as portions of a whole, disconnected merely, and involved in a common destiny, is quite incorrect. This eminent man went so far as to account for the extinction of certain varie- ties of apples and other fruits, on the hypothesis that when the original tree died, the extensions of it raised from cut- tings, though firmly rooted, and grown into large trees would die likewise. According to this hypothesis, an indi- vidual can exist in many places at once ; the willow, for ex- ample, which shades the first tomb of Napoleon at St. Helena, is the same as that which at Ermenonville weeps over the ashes of Rousseau. The original and the deriva- tives form a whole only in a historical point of view. In regard to the lease of life, a vigorous cutting is in the same position as a seed, and the tree raised from it enjoys a com- plete and independent term of being. It has nothing to do with the lease of its predecessor, but commences life de novoy and attains the age proper to the species. Probably enough, a cutting taken from an old and enfeebled tree, past its climacteric, may be unable to develop itself luxuriantly, and may die almost as soon ; but taken from a young and healthy one, its lease runs to the full term. Plants, it should be observed, are not equally capable of propagation in the way described. As regards trees, those of which the wood is light and white succeed the best, the willo\V, f(u- ex- LEASE OF LIFE IN ALGiE. 151 ample ; while with pines, oaks, and trees in general that have dense and resinous wood, the reluctance is extreme. Reviewing the whole matter, it will appear that so far from the principle of a fixed lease of life being invalidated by the facts of horticulture, it is verified with new illustrations. 88. Sea-weeds, like terrestrial plants, are annual, biennial, or perennial. The common green Ulva is an example of an annual; the great black fuci which hide the rocks on many coasts with their curious bladdered drapery, are perennial; the biennial include, among others, the Rhodomenia pal- mata, or dulse, and the Delessaria sanguinea, that lovely translucent plant which carries the palm with no less justice in the gardens of the sea, than the rose, which it emu- lates in color, in those of the land. CHAPTER IX. nUJtATION OV T.IFJ^ IN ANIMA LS. 89. In Animals, the lease of life is comparatively short. Though many species live longer than the generality of plants, none attain to ages so prodigious as occur among the* patriarchs of the forest; neither are so many species long^eval in proportion to the whole number. The elephant and the swan outlive myriads of shrubs and flowers; but when they have themselves waned into senility, the leafy pride of many trees has scarcely begun. Few of any tribe of animals live more than forty years ; whereas trees, almost without excejDtion, endure for at least a century. 90. The physiological or proximate reason of this disparity is, that in the animal kingdom, taken as a whole, life is pre- sent in a higher degree of concentration. This involves a more elaborate and complex organization, and a greater in- tensity of vital action; sustained, moreover, in unbroken continuity, and in every portion of the fabric at once — the very conditions which, as illustrated in the machines con- structed by human art, are identified with fragility and early exhaustion. In plants, without doubt, the organization is exquisitely fine, and the vital functions are various and womhirful. The microscopist well knows how beautiful is the system of cells, and tubes, and spiral vessels, constituting the int(irnal substance of a plant; and the physiologist, how admirable and profound is that vital economy which enables it to grow, to put forth leaves and blossoms in their proper 1.02 INDIVIDUALITY OF ANIMALS. 15S season, and to prepare sugar, oil, farina, and the thousand other products which render the vegetable kingdom so inva- luable to man; still, it is not such an organization as per- tains to Animal life, which demands both new varieties of tissue and new forms of organic apparatus. For while the animal is the completion of the design so marvellously sha- dowed forth and prefigured in the plant, it is not merely the plant more nobly and curiously developed. It is a recon- struction of the plant, effected, certainly, with the same crude materials, but wrought into forms more rare and com- posite, and with an entirely new set of ideas superadded. It is a mistake to suppose, as some have done, that plant and animal exactly agree, even in a single circumstance of their respective natures. There are organs of digestion, respira- tion, reproduction, and so forth, in both; and there is a general correspondence, between the functions which these organs severally fulfill ; but they are never the same organs, nor the same functions, in the strict and proper meaning of the word. The animal dwells on a higher platform, and all the phenomena of its history are in keeping. 91. The intenser life of the animal gives it a completer individuality, and to this, as the end for which it is gifted with intenser life, is properly to be ascribed its shorter lease when compared with the durability of the plant. The end for which a thing is designed is always the noblest feature of its being, and therefore the most useful as well as philo- sophical to keep uppermost in view. It is for the sake of sustaining its individuality that the organization of an animal is so complex and elaborate; it is for the same rea- son that the vital functions are so varied, ceaseless, and in- terwoven ; and further, that they are so universal as to the theatre of their performance. For they are not exercised only at certain periods, or in certain portions of the organ- ism, but unceasingly, from birth to dissolution, and as vigo- 154 ACTIVITY THE GKEAT CHARACTERISTIC. rously in one part as another. Certain great duties are assigned to special organs as head-quarters, it is true; but ju^actically and in effect, every organ is diflused througliout tlie body, and every function is everywhere performed. The heart is wherever there is blood; the brain wherever there is feeling. Tlie great characteristic of concentrated life, or of Individuality in high perfection, is this vivid, ceaseless, omnipresent Activity. In all the forms of nature which are endowed with it — that is, in all animals of any com- plexity of organization, as we saw when considering the sub- ject of food — there is a continual drawing-in of nutrient matter from without, and conversion of it into living tissue, and as continual a decomposition of wliat lias previously been assimilated, and concurrent expulsion of the fragments. Every moment, in the life of an animal, witnesses a new receiving, appropriation, and giving back; old age and rejuvenescence revolving upon each other; death destroying over again, and creation beginning afresh. On the excreting part of the process, the maintenance of the vital condition is more closely and immediately dependent than it is even upon the supply of new aliment. Feeding may be suspended for a considerable period without causing anything more than debility: but the removal of the effete particles gene- rated by the decomposition of the tissues, cannot be checked even for a few minutes, at least in the warm-blooded animals, without inducing a fatal result. For every act of respira- tion is in effect one of excretion, and to stay the breathing, as we all know, is to quench the life. 92. In trees and plants, on the other hand, where the con- centration of life is slight, the individuality faint, and the orgaTiization comparatively sinq)]e, so simple that no part of tlie organism is absolutely dependent upon another part, where there are no consecrated vital centres, no heart, lungs, brain, or digestive cavity, existence no longer depends upon ANALOGIES OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 155 incessant and total change of the very substance of tho fabric, and the vital activity is proportionately low. The bulk of the tree, that is, all the consolidated or woody por- tion, and every other part which has been finally shaped and hardened, instead of living by perpetual decomposition and reconstruction, and depending on these i^rocesses as the very condition of existence, remains fixed and unalterable till the lease of the entire organism has run out. Those parts only which are immediately employed in the vital pro- cesses, as the flowers, and leaves, and the extreme ends of the rootlets, in which parts there is also more concentration of life, are subject to such decay as takes place in the body of an animal. In these it occurs in close and striking cor- respondence, along with as complete a renovation. What the tissues are to the animal, the foliage is to plant and tree; every perennial plant, like every animal, dies innumerable molecular or leafy deaths prior to its total, somatic death; and, as the years roll by, is reinstated in as many molecular or leafy lives. Autumn and spring are to the tree, by cor- respondence, what every day of its existence is to a living animal; all that is concerned in keeping it alive withers away, but all is rapidly renewed. The difference as to the time that elapses between the respective deaths and renova- tions, e., of the molecules of the animal frame, and the leafy atoms of the tree, in no wise robs the phenomena of their essential unity. That which is most concentrated is always most vivacious, as the mountain-rivulet runs faster than the broad river of the plain. It was no mere play of fancy that led the ancients to call man arbor inversa. Man is not only man; he is all things, every part of the universe in turn, according to the point of view from which we look. The fable of Proteus is but a description of human nature : “First indeed he became a lion with noble mane, and then a dragon, and a leopard, and a great bear; and he became 156 LEASES OF LIFE IN THE MAMMALIA. liquid water, and a lofty-leaved tree.’’ Flesh and blood to our first or anatomical ideas, under the alchemy of the ima- gination, the human body transmutes into tree, fountain, temple, and all things in succession tliat are beautiful and glorious. Tilings are intelligible in fact, and truly seen, only in the degree that we discern ourselves in them, and read them through the lens of human nature. ^‘To describe any scene well,” says Richter, “ the poet must make tlie bosom of a man his camera obscura, and look at it through tliisf^ similarly, to enter into the full, philosophic understanding even of the simplest objects and phenomena of the world, we must take that ‘‘choice optic glass,” the human body and its life. 93. On a general survey of the ages reached by animals, when not shortened by violence or disease, the area of time which they cover is found but small compared with that of plants. With a few exceptions, forty, as before said, is about the maximum age, and three or four al)out the mini- mum. No such exact division can be made among them as that of annuals, biennials, and perennials, among plants, unless certain insects correspond to the first named. It is to be observed, however, that there is an ordinary maximum age, and an e^r^ra-ordinary. Every known lease of life, at least in the vertebrate animals, appears capable of renewal, or rather of extension, even to the doubling of the ordinary period; that is, while every creature has its customary or natural term, it appears competent to live, under certain favorable circumstances, for an extraordinary or additional term of the same, or nearly the same, extent. Thus, while the ordinary life of man is three score and ten, he is capable of an extraordinary life of seventy years more ; the ordinary life of the camel is forty or fifty, but individuals sometimes last out the century. Query, then, which is the actual and original lease? And if the longer one be the original (as LEASES OF LIFE IN THE MAMMALIA. 157 all the probabilities favor the belief of its being), why is it cut short by one-half in all but a few memorable cases? 94. The longest-living Mammal, after the whale, already mentioned, appears to be that affectionate, docile, and saga- cious creature, the elephant. Nothing is known positively as to its lease, but the estimate of one hundred and fifty years is certainly not beyond the mark.* The rhinoceros and the hippopotamus are reputed to come next, a maxi- mum of seventy or eighty being assigned to each of these huge brutes; then, it is said, follows the camel, a meagre, dry, active, exceedingly hardy animal, whose useful life ex- tends not infrequently to fifty. The period, reckoning by decrements, between fifty and thirty, is reached by few. The stag, longa3val only in romance, dies at thirty-five or thereabouts ; the leopard, bear, and tiger, fail fully ten years earlier; twenty-five or thirty is the ordinary maximum of the horse and ass, though the severe treatment of man rarely allows them to reach even this. The mule, it is worthy of notice, is stronger-lived and becomes older, a circumstance anticipated in plants, where hybrids frequently live longer than their parents. The cause is probably the same in both, and to be found in their infertility, whereby their whole vigor is left at liberty for self-maintenance, instead of being expended in two directions. Many leases expire between twenty and ten. The former seems to be the ordinary maxi- mum of the lion, as reached in menageries, though when unconfined it evidently lives longer, for it has sometimes been found without teeth. Twenty is the limit also with the bull, despite his great strength, size, and solidity; the dog and the wolf seldom pass eighteen; the sheep, the goat, and * An elephant aged one hundred and twenty years was put to death ia Lcndon, in July, 1855 . — TimeSj July 23d. 14 158 AGES ATTAINED BY BIRDS. tlie fox, rarely live more than twelve. Tlie maximum of the domestic cat is said to be ten; that of the rabbit, hare, and guinea-pig, seven or eight; that of the mouse, live or six, and of otlier such little animals about the same. As to the leases of the remainder of the four-footed creatures of our planet, excepting a dozen or so, zoology is entirely unin- formed, and until tliey shall have been ascertained, of course nothing like a proper list can be constructed. The animals which have been mentioned are certainly among the chief, and indicate the scope and limits which a table of ages, when completed, will exhibit; but so far, the list is only like a boy’s first map, unfurnished except with the names of the seas, the metropolis, and his native town. One thing is plain, that Man, regarded as a member of the animal king- dom, has no occasion to murmur at the shortness of his lease of life, but should rather congratulate himself, seeing that he enjoys a considerably longer term, even in his ordi- nary duration, than the great mass of his physiological fra- ternity, while it is pretty certain that there is not an animal of his own size that does not return to dust before half as old. 95. The scale of ages attained by Birds is much about the same as that of mammals; but taking j3ne with another, they probably live longer in proportion to their bulk. No creatures are better adapted for longevity; they are pecu- liarly well clothed, for no covering can be more complete, or better calculated to preserve warmth, than their soft, close-lying feathers; and as these are renewed periodically, they are maintained in the best possible condition. Many birds also cast their bills, and ac(piire new ones, a most ad- vantageous exchange for them, since they are thereby ren- dered so much the better able to feed themselves. Besides these peculiarities, birds live almost entirely in the fresh air, and their habits are cheerful and sportive, conditions emi- AGES OF FISHES. 169 nently conducive to long life. As to the particular terms of life which obtain among them, Flourens says he knows ‘^nothing certain.” There is plenty of evidence, neverthe- less, that such birds as the eagle, the vulture, the falcon, and the swan, far surpass all others in longevity, and attain ages so remarkable as often to exceed very considerably that of man. Even the crow is reputed to live a hundred years, and the raven no less than ninety. There have been in- stances of the parrot living for sixty years a prisoner, and its age, when captured, would have to be added. Pelicans and herons are said to reach forty to fifty years; hawks, tliirty to forty; peacocks, goldfinches, and blackbirds, about twenty; pheasants and pigeons, about the same; nightin- gales, fifteen; the robin, a little less; domestic fowls, about ten; thrushes, eight or nine; wrens, two to three. 96. Concerning the ages of Fishes, even less is known than about birds. It is vaguely believed of them that they are longseval. The reasons for this opinion are, that the element in which they live is more uniform in its condition than the atmosphere, and that they are less subject in conse- quence to those injurious influences which tend to shorten the lives of terrestrial creatures; and secondly, that their bones, being of a more cartilaginous nature than those of land animals, admit of almost indefinite extension, so that the frame is longer in growing to maturity. Gesner gives an instance of a carp, in Germany, which was known to be a hundred years old; other writers assign to this fish as much as a hundred and fifty, and to the pike a longevity even greater. Hufeland remarks that natural death occurs among fishes more rarely than in any other part of the ani- mal kingdom. ^‘The law of the transition of one into another, according to the right of the strongest, prevails here far more generally than elsewhere. One devours another, — the stronger the weaker. This regulation,” he 160 AGES OF REPTILES. continues, ‘^is a proof of divine and exalted wisdom. If the innumerable millions of the inhabitants of the waters were to remain when they died a single day unentombed, they would speedily diffuse abroad the most dreadful pestilential evaporation. But passing, while scarcely dead, into the substance of another living being, death exists less in the Avater than on land, — the putrefaction takes place in the stomachs of the stronger.” 97. lleptiles attain surprising ages. The tortoise, Avhich is so slow in growing that in twenty years an increase of a few inches is all that can be detected, has lived even in cap- tivity above a century. One placed in the garden of Lam- beth Palace, in the time of Archbishop Laud, lived there till the year 1753; and its death was then induced seemingly through misfortune rather than old age. The enormous creatures of this kind, natives of the Galapagos, undoubt- edly live twice or thrice as long as the common species; an individual possessed some years back by the London Zoolo- gical Society, had every appearance of being at least a hundred and seventy -five. Even these immense ages were probably far exceeded by the great fossil testudinata of the Himalayahs. It is easy to see the cause of such longevity. The same law which obtains in the mechanics of inanimate matter, operates in the organisms of vitalized matter, namely, that what is gained in time must be lost in power. The active habits which in shorter-lived animals accelerate the vital processes, and bring the lease to an early close, here are no longer found. The tortoises have no excitable nervous system to Avear out the durable materials encased in their impenetrable armor; they spend the greater part of their lives in inactivity, and exist rather than live. By analogy, it may be inferred that the loricate and ophidian reptiles reach an age fully as advanced as the tortoises. LEASES OF LIFE IN INSECTS. 161 The crocodile, large, strong, vigorous, enclosed in a hard coat of mail, and incredibly voracious, is, without doubt, exceed- ingly long-lived. The larger serpents, also slow in growth, and passing a considerable portion of their lives in semi- torpor, are also unquestionably longseval. Feeding vora- ciously, at long intervals, so familiar in the case of serpents, seems invariably associated with prolonged life. As regards the Amphibia, Smellie refers to a toad known to have been at least thirty-six. The frog, which, by reason of its slow growth, in this climate at least, is incapable of producing young till its fourth year, reaches, however, what in propor- tion to this late puberty is the very inconsiderable age of no more than from twelve to about sixteen. 98. Insects, for the most part, are short-lived, especially after their last transformation. Some, after acquiring their wings, live only for the remainder of the day. In calculat- ing the ages of insects, of course they must be reckoned from the hatching of the egg. Different species exist two, three, and even four years in the grub state; then a con- siderable time in the chrysalis; the winged state being merely that of completed maturity. That which especially marks the latter is the fitness of the creature for propaga- tion ; and this, as the period of its bloom, is also the briefest. The Ephemerae, in their winged state, are not even creatures of a day. Scarcely a single gnat, as such, survives a week; not half the beetles, nor any of the grasshoppers nor Tipulie, those long-legged dancers of the autumn, enters on a second month; a fortnight sees the death of almost every kind of butterfly and moth. One of the longest-living insects is that brilliant beetle, the Scarabceiis auratus, or Eose-chaffer, the only one that feeds upon the flower from which it takes its English name. After four years spent as a grub, and a fortnight as a chrysalis, it has lived in captivity from two to 14 162 GENERAL CAUSES OF LONGEVITY. three years more.* That curious hut treacherous and cruel creature, tlie Mantis religiosa, or Praying cricket, ^vlHch holds up the foremost pair of its long, desiccated, skeleton legs, as if in the act of prayer, is said to attain a full octave. 99. Whatever errors there may be in the particular figures above quoted, the general principles which they illustrate are indisputable. Whatever class of organisms we may take, the ground of longer or shorter life lies uni- versally in the structure, the temperament, and the less or greater vital energy. We have seen how this is manifested in regard to the aggregate of organic nature ; also how it is verified in respect to plants ; it obtains with animals, in their several tribes and species, after precisely the same manner, only that the phenomena are played forth in greater variety, and in costumes appropriate to the nobler stage. All the diversities in the duration of animal life may be referred perhaps to the two general heads — of Size, as regards the substance of the creature, and Energy, as regards its vital powers. Other circumstances are but adjuncts, though in- separably connected with and conditional on them. All the longseval creatures, like all the longseval trees, are con- siderable in their bulk ; at all events they are the largest forms of their respective tribes, the swan, for example, among birds,f and the crocodile among reptiles ; the smallest forms, on the other hand, are alw^ays the shortest- lived. The reason cor^iists in the ampler command which they possess over the world around them. As the colossal tree owes its longer ity to its immense feeding-surface of * See for an entertaining aecount of the keeping this beautiful in- fieet as a pet, ‘‘Episodes of Insect Life,’^ vol. ii., p. 70. f The ostrieli, as tlie largest of birds, is undoubtedly the longest liver, l)ut nothing is known with certainty ns to its lease. GENERAL CAUSES OF LONGEVITY. 163 green leaf, so the largely-developed animal lives longer than the little one, because it possesses more vital capacity, more contact with external nature, more scope and opportunity for acquiring strength of every kind ; there is also greater power of resisting what is inimical to life, as intense cold, though marvelous examples of the latter property occur among those living riddles, the animalcules. Great size, however, does not carry long life with it necessarily. More intimately connected with longevity even than bulk, is the greater or less intensity of the vital action ; in proportion to the rapidity with which an animal lives, is invariably the brevity of its lease. That is, of two animals, alike in regard to bulk, that one will have the shortest duration which lives the fastest, and that one the longest which lives slowest. The expression “fast living,’’ now so commonly applied to extravagant expenditure of the resources, involv- ing premature stoppage and decay, is not a mere phrase of gay society ; it denotes a condition of things which in nature is sometimes normal. The two great kingdoms of organ- ized nature are physiologically characterized in fact, by this very thing. It is because trees live so slowly that they endure for centuries, and because animals live so fast that few of them reach fifty. All the longseval animals have a relatively lower vital energy ; all the short-lived (or at least such as attain any considerable bulk) possess it in excess. As a result of this condition, we usually find the longseval creatures deliberate and stately in their movements, and leading calm and placid lives, as the elephant, the giraffe, and the swan ; while the short-lived ones are as remarkable for their sportive restlessness, as they course about the fields, or sail through the sky or water. Creatures that run much are rarely, if ever, long-lived. In the vegetable kingdom it is the same ; the longseval tree is like tlie elepliant it sliades, tranquil and august; the gourd that dies with the close of 164 REPHODTTCTION AND LONGEVITY. summer is rampant and wanton. In the wliole compass of nature, perhaps there is nothing more full of quiet grandeur than the sacred, ever-verdant cedar of twenty centuries. 100. Tlie circumstances of animal life which hear inti- mate relation to its lease, though not immediately promotive or preventive of longevity, are chiefly, as in plants, those connected with Keproduction. Early puberty, which in plants forebodes an early death, similarly announces it in animals, for it shows that maturity will soon be reached, and we scarcely need the proverb* to learn what happens next. Contrariwise, those creatures live the longest which are latest in acquiring ability to procreate. The long life of man, for example, follows as a natural sequence upon his protracted infancy. Other animals of his size begin to pro- pagate after a much earlier anniversary of birth than he does ; they attain their puberty in a few years, or even months ; waiting for it the seventh part of a century, man is compensated at the end. The period occupied in gestation is remarkably correlative with the term of life. The longer time an animal requires for its formation in its mother’s womb, the more extended is its life ; the shorter the period between conception and birth, the less is the lease extended. The duration of gestation is of course largely determined by the creature’s size and organization in general. The bulky elephant goes with young no less than twenty months, and lives a century and a half ; the puny rabbit requires only thirty days, and dies in eight years. What is reputed concerning the long life of the swan becomes credible when tested by this law; for incubation in birds corresponds to gestation in mammals, and no bird, unless the ostrich, is so slow in hatching its eggs. The law, like all others, belongs * Quod cito fit, cllo peril. which is quickly formeef quickly perishes.’’ Vulgarly, ‘SSoon ripe, soon rotten.” GESTATION AND LONGEVITY. 165 as mucli to plants, wherein the gestation of animals is pre- figured in the ripening of the fruit. The longieval trees are among the first to open their flowers (the instruments of vegetable coition), yet their seeds are the latest to become ripe, the whole season, from early spring to the close of autumn, being required for their proper maturation. Thus, though the yew blossoms in March, or several weeks before the apple, its berries are not ripe till the end of October ; the box-tree opens its flowers at the same time, but is scarcely parturient till winter. Many kinds of pine-trees, also the cedar, and several oaks, as Quercus Cerris, suber, and rubra, all of them long-lived, require two seasons to bring their fruits to perfection. On the other hand, the short-lived perennials, and annuals universally, complete the whole process of reproduction, from the opening of the flowers to the ripening of the seed, in the course of some six or seven weeks? In the mistletoe occurs a curious excep- tion. Like the yew and the box, it blossoms early in the spring, and ripens its berries certainly no sooner, perhaps not till near Christmas, yet it is by no means a longseval plant. How are we to account for this ? May it be refer- able to the parasitic nature of the plant, being dependent on plunder for its sustenance ? 101. The number of young produced at a birth is again correlative with the duration of life. The longest-living animals produce the fewest, while the shortest-lived are also the most proliflc. The female elephant, rhinoceros, hippo- potamus, and camel, never have more than one at a birth ; the horse, the ox, the stag, one, and occasionally two ; the goat and the sheep have from one to three or four ; the leo- pard and tiger, four or flve ; the dog, the fox, and the cat, three to six ; the rabbit, four to eight ; the guinea-pig, the most proliflc of the mammalia, four to twelve. In the hu- man race, where the lease of life is considerable in proper- 166 FECUNDITY AND LONG LIFE. tion to the size of tlie body, twins come only once in every seventy or eighty births ; triplets only once in seven thou- sand.* About fifteen seems the highest number of young ever produced at one birth among the warm-blooded ani- mals ; in hict, a larger number would be incompatible with the economy of utero-gestation, and subsequently with that of the maternal nourishment, the fountains of which are usually about double the number of the young produced at a birth. It would be incompatible, also, with the fair sharing of the earth’s surface, and thus with the fine ba- lance, harmony, and proportions of nature. The economy of incubation puts a similar limit to the number of eggs that a bird hatches at once, which is seldom less than two or three, and never above sixteen. The most astonishing cases of fecundity occur among fishes and insects. In the genus Cyprinus among the former, comprising the carp, the barbel, the tench, the bream, &c., hundreds of thousands of ova have been counted ; and in the common cod, several millions. Crustaceous animals often produce many thou- sands ; and the Batrachians, some hundreds at the least. Like the preceding, this great principle is exemplified also in plants. The number of seeds produced by annuals and short-lived plants is infinitely greater than trees usually yield ; for though in the aggregate of their crops of fruit trees are so fertile, in the strict physiological sense they are few-seeded, and not infrequently only one-seeded. In com- paring plants and animals as to their productiveness, we must remember that a tree is a nation, every bough a pro- vince, every branch a large district ; we have to consider, therefore, not the sum total of the produce of the entire * Til is proportion is not universal, varying with different nations. The Greenland women seareely ever have twins; whereas among the people of Chili they are remarkably common. LEASE OF HUMAN LIFE. 167 number of flowers — the total, for instance, of the acorns upon an oak: — but bow many seeds are produced by each separate and independent flower, which is the real equiva- lent of the animal, the tree itself being equivalent to a whole herd of quadrupeds, or a whole city-full of mankind. Thus, the flowers of the oak-tree, which lives above a thou- sand years, produce, like the elephant, only one at a birth ; the flowers of the apple-tree, about ten ; those of the straw- berry-plant (a perennial), more than a hundred ; those of the poppy (an annual), eight thousand. That there is an exact ratio between the productiveness of a plant and the period to which it lives, is by no means asserted. There are plenty of few-seeded annuals, and of many-seeded peren- nials ; but, as a rule, the former are more fecund. Puff- balls and parasitic fungi, the most ephemeral of plants, cast their seeds into the atmosphere like impalpable dust, agree- ing in their fecundity with fishes. The quantity of fruit produced by the entire tree or plant, corresponding as it does to the population of a country, has its own laws of in- crease and fluctuation, and is a different matter altogether from fertility of the species, as correlative with lease of life. When we find longsevals very fecund, it is probably because their produce is an important food to some creature of supe- rior rank. How few acorns ever become oaks. 102. What may be the lease of Human life, is a question for which the Psalmist is almost universally acknowledged to have provided a final answer : “ The days of our years are three score years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we flee away.’’ There are plenty of examples, however, of longevity far exceeding even the higher figures, accompanied by retention of all the faculties and powers the exercise of which forms the true life of man. Arguing from these, it has been thought that, by using proper means, 168 LEASE OF HUMAN LIFE. an age of no less than two centuries may be attained; less ambitious minds have been content to lio})e for a century and a half; in Genesis itself one liundred and twenty years are fixed, (vi. 3.) Buffon considered that the maximum need never be under ninety or a hundred, wliicb ‘Hbe man,’’ says be, ‘‘ who does not die of accidental causes, everywhere reaches.” Flourens, the latest writer upon the subject, con- curs in the opinion of bis famous countryman: A hundred years of life is what Providence intended for man; it is true that few reach this great term, but hoiv few do what is iieces- sary to attain it! Witli our customs, our passions, our mi- series, man does not die — lie kills himself If we observe men, we shall see that almost all lead a nervous and conten- tious life, and that most of them die of disapj)ointment. How few, comparatively, number even the three score and ten! The weakness of infancy, the intemperance of the adult period, the violence of diseases, the fatality of acci- dents, and other circumstances similarly inimical to long life, prevent more than about seventy persons in every thou- sand attaining natural old age. There is great solace, never- theless, in the thought of what may be reached. Haller, who has collected a great number of examples of long life, reckons up more than a thousand instances of individuals having attained the age of one hundred to one hundred and ten, sixty of one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty, twenty-nine of one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty, fifteen of one hundred and thirty to one hundred and forty, six of one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty, and one of one hundred and sixty-nine. Curtis, but without the credibility of Haller, cites one hundred and seventy-two, one hundred and eighty-five, and two hundred and seven, As regards tlie life of the Antediluvians, before the question is examiiKid physiologically, it may be well for those who are curious about it to be sure what the inspired narrative really RELATION OF MATURITY TO TERM OF LIFE. 169 means. When the belief that the names of the patriarchs denote communities rather than individuals, shall be shown to be more at variance with the spirit and the object of the sacred records than the popular opinion is, it will be time to take it up as a matter of science. A noted living theologian suggests from out of one of the darkest caves of literalism, that our first parents did actually eat of the Tree of Life, and that its virtue was transmitted through several successive generations, till at last it became dissipated and lost, and man was reduced to a miserable tithe of his first possession.* 103. Flourens fixes a hundred as the normal life of man on the principle that there is an exact ratio between the period occupied in growing to maturity and the full term or lease of existence, a principle which he shows pretty conclu- sively to prevail throughout the whole of the mammalia. Aristotle was the first to enunciate this great doctrine; Buf- fon the first to throw it into coherent shape. As set forth by the latter, it teaches that every animal lives, or at least is competent to live, from six to seven times as many years as it consumes in growing. The stag, he tells us, is five or six years in growing, and lives thirty-five or forty in all ; the horse is about four, and lives to be twenty-five or thirty. “ One thing only,” says Flourens, “ was unknown to Buffon, namely, the sign that marks the term of growth.” This is the essen- tial point; it is by having determined the sign that Flourens has vitalized the doctrine, which, so long as it lay undisco- vered, was little better than a speculation. There might be no hesitation in conceding the theory; but until the basis of the calculation could be indisputably shown, there could * See, on the non-literal character of the statements respecting the ages of the Antediluvians, Lev. E. D. EendelFs ^‘Antediluvian History,” chapter xviii., (1850), also the “ Prospective Eeview,” vol. \i., p. 251. 15 H 170 MATURITY MARKED IN THE RONES. be no security felt in the conclusions. Still, it was a grand idea — one of those fine truths in outline which nature seems to delight in sketching on the thoughts of imaginative men, and filling up gradually and at leisure. The maturity of the body in general of course consists in the maturity of all its parts, but the period of such maturity differs almost as much as the parts themselves. The muscles, the composition of the vocal apparatus, even the eye-brows, have their re- spective periods of perfect development, and were we mi- nutely acquainted with every particular of the body, each would probably furnish the sign required. Flourens finds it in the Bones. The bones are the basis of the whole sys- tem ; they are the first principle, so to speak, of its configu- ration; they support, defend, and contain the nobler organs. To fulfill these functions, they uniformly require to be pos- sessed of the three mechanical properties of firmness, light- ness, and tenacity, and in order to these it is needful that they be exquisitely organized. We are apt to suppose, from the hardness and durability of bones, that even in the living body they are scarcely Autal ; that they should be subjects of gradual and delicate growth, seems almost impossible to conceive. But minute anatomy, the most pleasing and re- warding part of the science of the human fabric, shows bones to be as full of life, in their degree, as any of the softer parts, and that the organization is inferior to none. In order that they shall possess the three properties alluded to, bones are formed of two principal ingredients, an animal matter and an earthy matter, intimately interblended. In the bones of the infant the quantity of earthy matter is com- paratively small, and the animal substance itself is softer than at later periods. As it grows, however, the proportions change; the animal matter becomes firmer; earthy particles are deposited in it abundantly, and the bone gradually as- sumes its j)roper density. The total of the process constb HOW OSSIFICATION PROCEEDS. 171 tutes “ossification.” The proportion of earthy to animal matter is not the same in the different bones. The maximum occurs in those of the head; the long bones of the limbs have the next largest quantity, those of the upper limbs ex- ceeding the lower; and last of all come the bones of the trunk. Thus, the Earthy matter. Temporal bone contains 63*50 Humerus “ 63*02 Femur 62*49 Animal matter. 36*50 36*98 37*51 The earthy matter is not deposited in every part at once ; it spreads, so to speak, from ossific centres, gradually diffusing itself throughout the mass. This is of the utmost import- ance to observe, for it is upon this apparently trifling cir- cumstance that the whole of the conclusions are primarily founded. In all the long bones, as those of the legs and arms, there are portions at the extremities which, at first, or in the child, are united to the intermediate portion only by the cartilage or animal matter of which the bone then prin- cipally consists. These end-portions of the bone (called its epiphyses) are ossific centres — points at which the deposition of earthy matter commences, and from which it gradually extends. As growth proceeds, ossification progresses from the middle part of the bone towards the epiphyses, and from the epiphyses towards the middle part, till at last they are joined into one continuous mass of hard, completed bone. As soon as the junction is efiected, and the bone consolidated, growth is completed, and the sign of matu- rity established. “As long,” says Flourens, “ as the bones are not united to their epiphyses, the animal grows ; when once the bones and their epiphyses are united, the animal grows no more.” Not that growth is completed and matu- ritv established, in that strict sense of the words which 1]2 MAN FITTED TO LIVE A HUNDRED YEARS. would imply an absolutely stationary condition tliencefor- wards, or at least of the whole body. There is no period when the system is absolutely stationary ; it is always either advancing to a state of perfection, or receding from that state. The skeleton alone remains fixed. ‘‘ It is true that at the adult age, the determinate height and figure, the set- tled features, and in man, the marked moral and mental character, naturally gave rise to the supposition that a fixed point has been attained ; but a little inquiry soon teaches us that the individual is still the subject of j^rogressive changes. The capability of powerful and prolonged muscular exer- tion increases for some years ; there must consequently be a change in the muscular tissue. The intellectual faculties have not attained their maximum, although we do not hesi- tate to consider them mature ; we must therefore infer that there is a corresponding development in the substance of the brain.’’ In the camel, Plourens goes on to say, the union of the epiphyses to the bones is completed at eight years old, in the horse at five, in the ox at four, in the cat at eighteen months, in the rabbit at twelve months, and in every case the duration of life is five times, or pretty nearly, the age of the creature when this process is accomplished. Flourens does not differ essentially from Buffon in saying five times instead of six or seven times the period of matu- rity, because Buffon fixed maturity at earlier epochs. It is the same thing in the end to say seven times five with Buf- fon, or five times seven with Flourens. In man, the union of the epiphyses to the bones takes place at twenty years of age, and as observation appears to establish five as the le- gitimate number by which to multiply in regard to the re- mainder of the mammalia, the conclusion is that five times twenty, or a hundred, is the normal lease in our own spe- cies. If the principle be sound — and there is no reason for distrust — to determine the lease of life in animals where it LONGEVITY INFLUENCED BY SEX AND MAEKIAGE. 173 will apply, will be, for the future, a comparatively easy matter. A few careful examinations of the bones in grow- ing individuals will enable the period of maturity to be learned with certainty, and five times this period may be inferred to be the lease.* 104. Numerous facts of a miscellaneous character invite our notice in regard to the duration of human life. Coeteris paribus, large men are said to live longer than little ones ; married men longer than bachelors. Celibacy as well as marriage has its advocates in this respect, the fact probably being that there is plenty of illustration of both opinions, though on the whole, matrimony certainly has the advan- tage. We may reconcile the different views by considering that in the one case there is less wear and tear of the vital energy ; and that in the other the weakened frame is re- stored and replenished by the tender ofiices of afiection. If two lie together then they have heat, but how can one be warm alone As a rule, longevity is greater in women than in men. Childbirth and its antecedents occasion in- deed a considerable loss of life ; the age of puberty carries off eight per cent, more maidens than youths ; the propor- tion of deaths in parturition is one in one hundred and eight; the difference, however, which these losses would seem to produce disappears in the general average. Either sex may calculate their probability of life by reckoning the difference between the age already attained and ninety. * For a variety of other and curious details on the subject of the duration of life, both in man and the lower animals, such as it is unnecessary here to introduce, the student may refer to the works of Flourens, Hufeland, and Buffon, above cited, and on the particu- lar subject of maturity, to the article “Age,’^ in Todd’s Cyclopaedia of Pliysio^jgy. See also the reviews of Flourens in Blackwood for May, 1855, and Colburn for July of the same year. 174 LONGEVITY AFFECTED BY PURSUITS. Half that difference is wliat the assurance offices would call their ‘‘expectation.’’ For example, a man of forty years old has fifty between his age and ninety; half of that fifty is twenty-five ; and provided he is free from any undermining disease, he may trust that for those twenty-five years he will continue, with God’s blessing, to enjoy tiic honor and privi- lege of existence. One thing it is important to remember — the period of maturity is the only one that admits of pro- longation. Infancy, childhood, and youth, have certain limits, which are seldom come short of or exceeded. The same in old age — it cannot endure beyond a certain length of time, and when once it begins, it speedily leads to the grave. In other words, neither childhood nor old age can be arrested ; middle life alone can be stretched out. Of the three conditions of life we cannot possibly alter the first and third, for they are out of our control ; the middle one we may abbreviate or prolong, since it is left for us to deal with as we choose. The influence of pursuits and occupa- tions on the duration of life has often been illustrated. The average is said to be with clergymen sixty-flve years ; with merchants sixty-two ; farmers sixty-one ; military men fifty- nine ; lawyers flfty-eight ; artists flfty-seven, and so on. Po- verty and destitution tend to shorten life; comfort and happiness to prolong it. CHAPTER X. GMOUJSrnS of the VAHIOUS lease of life, SPIEITUATj BASIS OF NATUBE. 105. The primary, essential reasons of the diversity in the duration of life (as distinct from the proximate or phy- siological), are comprised in the law of Correspondence, and the law of Use, the two great principles which furnish the whole rationale of existence. Correspondence un- folds the relation of the material world to the spiritual, and shows the first Causes of visible nature ; Use instructs us as to the particular Ends for which the various objects of creation have been designed, and the necessity there is for every one of them. Springing out of these laws, and de- pendent on them, is the condition of Form, by which term is to be understood not merely the configuration of a thing, but the total of the circumstances which establish its iden- tity, such as the size, organization, and vital economy; and according to these last, according to the peculiarities of the Form, is eventually determined the duration of the life. The inmost, original causes of the diversity in the lease of life we thus discover in spiritual philosophy, the last, con- cluding ones, in the philosophy of nature. We should accustom ourselves thus to trace things to their first begin- nings, whatever may be the subject of investigation. Our mental progress is immensely contingent upon it ; desire to discover, and success in finding them, are the surest signs of enlarging intellectual empire. For the true i)hilosophy 176 THE Si'TRTTU.M. WORLD. of cause and effect docs not consist in tlie simple determina- tion of immediate antecedents, nor is it satisfied to remain in them. Every cause is itself only tlie effect of a still finer cause, which again results from a yet finer, no longer phy- sical, necessarily, and the wdiole chain, from beginning to end, must he considered, if we would acquire a just notion of the last effect. Nowliereis it more needful to investigate these successive causes than in regard to the duration of life. To see the reasons of longer and shorter life purely in its organic apparatus, is to see the cause of Language in the movements of the lips and tongue. It is a truth, but not the whole, nor the vital truth. Every physical fact is the last issue and expression of something sj)iritual, which must be sought before the former can become properly intelligible, and to which reason will direct its steps, though half-reason may stand indifferent and mocking. 106. With Correspondence, accordingly, or the relations of the material world with the Spiritual, lies our first con- cern. To enter successfully upon the consideration of it, obviously requires that we should hold clear ideas of what the material and the spiritual respectively are. Concerning these we must therefore primarily inquire, and especially concerning the spiritual w^orld. Strictly, the consideration of the spiritual expression of Life should precede that of the spiritual World. The obligation to take the latter before its time comes of the fact that all great truths have many points of contact, whereby it becomes impossible to treat intelligibly of any one of them without approaching and anticipating others. The truth, however, of the general system which comprises them is declared by it, since in order to the harmony of a whole, every part must be in alliance, and the insulation of any one part impracticable. The spiritual world is no mere abstraction. Viewed theologically, it is the place in which we shall consciously reside after the THE MATERIAL WOKLL REPRESENTATIVE ONLY. 177 death of our material bodies, enjoying its sunshine, or walk- ing wretched in its gloom, according as we have adapted ourselves during our time-life ; — viewed philosophically, it is the same old beautiful world of God with which we are familiar under the name of earth and sky, only on a higher plane of creation, and prior to it. When we would think accurately of “Nature,” we must not confine ourselves to the visible world. “Nature,” in the full sense of the word, denotes whatever exists externally to the Creator, not having been planned by human contrivance, or executed by human labor, thus not only earth and sky, but the heavenly man* sions also. The one is physical nature; the other, spiritual nature; and the former presupposes the latter. The world, say rather the worlds , — those sparkling spheres we call the planets and the stars, — are not independent and original creations. Every one of them is derived and representa- tive, a sequence and disclosure of some anterior sphere in the spiritual world. Every object they contain is of similar history and origin, a figure demonstrating the spiritual, and supported by it. Not that the physical world is destitute of Reality. By no means the mere illusion of the mind which certain metaphysicians would have us believe, — for there are no quintessential metaphysics that can gainsay common sense, — the material world is emphatically a Real one. On the other hand, it is quite as wrong and unphilo- sophical to think of it, as many do, as primitive, independent, self-supporting. When we look on a beautiful landscape, we see mountains, trees, rivers, real and substantial as re- gards the material universe; nevertheless, only images of forms originally existing in a world which we do not see, and from which they are derived; — forms that are neither com- prised within material space, nor related to terrestrial time, — forms which are as real, therefore, as the material; yea, infinitely more so, since the material is local and temporary, 178 SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL SUBSTANCE. vvliereas the spiritual is unlimited, and the home of immor- tality. Nothing exists except by reason of the spiritual world; whatever pertains to the material is purely and simply Effect; — a fact in itself commending the spiritual to our philosophic curiosity and affection, since, — as all well know who are ever so little in the habit of meditating upon things not present to the bodily sight, — it is only by think- ing of the invisible productive in connection with the resulting products^ that the latter acquire true being, life, beauty, and physiognomical expression. Seeing how the material world changes, yet how permanent it is, we cannot persuade ourselves but that there must be an indestructible and vigorous something which . underlies and from time to time refashions it, — something which is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. AVhatever shape a material organism may possess, nothing but spirit, we are well assured, can act. Only by virtue of force communicated from something spiritual, is matter, under any circumstances, consolidated and configured. In itself matter is unable to effect any- thing; it passes indifferently from mould to mould without retaining the shape of any. That invisible, potent some- thing cannot be a mere Energy either. A Cause, that is to say, an active, productive force, cannot be efficient unless it operate from and through a substance. If there be a spirit- ual world at all, it must be like the material world, substan- tial, Substance must not be confounded with matter. Sub- stance is a generic term ; matter is one of the species which it includes. Substance is that which is indispensable to the being of a thing, as the continent of its sustaining life. For, to be is the same as to be alive, which is to be a recipient of life; and wherever life is received, whether in the material world or tlie S])iritual, there must needs be a substance to receive it. Granted, the substance of the spiritual world cannot be detected or defined scientifically. But that there SUBSTANCE AND MATTER. 179 is such a substance may nevertheless be affirmed, just as reasonably as when we hear Echo, we may affirm an echo- producing instrument. Spiritual substances are none the less real because out of the reach of chemistry or edge-tools, or because they are inappreciable by the organs of sense. Indeed it is only the grosser expressions of matter which can be so treated, and which the senses can apprehend. Heat and electricity are as truly material as flint and granite, yet man can neither cut, nor weigh, nor measure them ; while the most familiar and abundant expression of all, the Air which we breathe, can neither be seen nor felt till put in motion. As for invisibility, which to the vulgar is the proof of non-existence, no warning is so incessantly addressed to us, from every dej)artment of creation, as not to commit the mistake of disbelieving simply because we cannot see. When we reflect how many things there are which cannot be measured and comprehended even by Thought, which nevertheless are true, visibility to the material eye, as the test of reality, sinks to the least and lowest value. Each class of substances is real in relation to the world it belongs to; — material substances in the material world; spiritual substances in the spiritual world; and each kind has to be judged of according to its place of abode. Distance in nature from the material no more disproves the existence of the spiritual, than distance in space disproves the existence of the bottom of the sea. The common notion of spirit is that of an attenuate form of matter; that it is what matter would become were it rarified into a perfectly free, fluent, unfixed, unbounded condition; and conversely, that matter is con- gealed or concreted spirit, bearing to it something of the same relation that ice does to steam, or a pastile to the fragrance into which it burns. Spirit and matter are utterly and incommensurably distinct; under no circumstances are 180 ART DERIVED FROM THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. they transformahle or convertible.* To deny tlie existence of spiritual substance, is to assert that heaven is an empty void, whereas St. John represents it as a plenitude of objects and scenery, of the most substantial kind. It is to depopu- late it also of its angels, who if they be real enough to be persons, must assuredly be real enough to consist of sub- stance. Unless always upon the wing, they must likewise have a substantial surface whereon to stand. 107. Lying thus, at the back of the visible and sensible, the spiritual world is the universal fountain. Therein are contained “the invisible things of God,” which are “clearly seen by the things that are made.” Therein, likewise, are contained the “patterns” which were shown to Bezaleel in the mount. That history of Bezaleel has wonderful instruc- tion in it. What the spiritual world is to the spontaneous, objective forms of nature, it is also, we may gather from it, to Art, which like those forms, is not an ornament placed upon the surface of the world from without, or purely by man, but an outbirth from the unseen universe within ; just as the verdure of the fields is not a carpet laid down and spread over them, but an outvegetation of hidden seeds. All the men who have been greatest in Art have been dis- tinguished by their consciousness that they were merely reve- lators of spiritual facts. “Appeal to an artist, and ask him why he so painted any given heroic head, without any old “farnily portrait” to guide him. If he be a true artist, a race not numerous, he will say, “ I could not do otherwise. That man had such a temper, such a life, in him. I, there- fore, mastering the inward spirit of the man, found his * See, on the grossness of the popular error, its prevalence, and its evil tendencies, Barclay’s “Inquiry into the Opinions, Ancient and Modern, concerning Life and Organization,” chap, iii., sec. II. (1822.) NATURAL THEOLOGY OF ART. 181 fashion and his features created for me and given to me.” Because such is the ultimate origin of the products of true art, of such, that is, as are something more than mere ser- vile, tradesmen’s copies of familiar physical objects, there is a Natural Theology of Art. For Art, rightly understood, is a portion of nature, and genuine Natural Theology cannot take either part without the other.* Briefly, as the Soul is the essential Human Body, so is that grand, invisible, im- perishable fabric we call the spiritual, the essential World. The spiritual world is the total of Essential nature ; this visible, material world is a portion of Representative nature, a portion only, because the little planet we call our own is the covering of a very minute part indeed of the infinite spiritual realm which is its parent. Here we have but a few detached sketches of the panorama which belongs there, and what few we have, albeit they are so lovely, we see but “as through a glass, darkly.” It will not be so always. The spiritual world known to philosophy is no other, as said before, than the spiritual world of the hopeful Christian — the very same which we shall consciously inhabit when by death we cease to be conscious of the present. Our intro- duction in this life to mineral, vegetable, and animal, to air, and sky, and sun, is the beginning of a friendship that will never be dissolved, only that hereafter we shall view things as they really are, instead of their effigies and pic- tures. In this world we do not so much live as prepare to live, nor enj oy nature’s sweet amenities so much as prepare to enjoy them. We shall leave it, but we shall not lose its beauty; we shall learn rather how most thoroughly to de- light in it, often turning in pleased remembrance to those * Excellently set forth in an article in the North American Re- view for July, 1854, “On the moral significance of the Crystal Palace.’^ 16 182 EVIDENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. early days which now we reckon as onr ‘‘life-time,” and to that little sphere wliich was our birtli-place and education. 108. Philo Judaeus calls upon us to observe tliat the deri- vation of the physical world from an anterior spiritual world is expressly taught in the book of Genesis : “ These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, . . . and of every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and of every herb of the field before it grew which words, says Philo, “do manifestly teach that before the earth was green, ver- dure already existed ; that before the grass sprang in the field, there was grass, though it was not visible. The same must we understand from Moses in the case of everything else which is perceived by the external senses ; there were elder forms and motions already existing, according to which the others were fashioned and measured out. The things which he has mentioned are examples of the nature of all.”* 109. The evidence that there is a spiritual world under- lying the material, is quite as ready and plentiful as of the material world itself, if men will but look for it in the right place, and consent to receive it, for spectacles are less needed than willingness. It is rarely that incapacity hinders the reception of truth ; rather is it want of cordiality to give it welcome. We speak now, of course it will be understood, of the spiritual world as a truth of Philosophy, i. e., as the basis, as to first principles, of terrestrial nature. Most men believe in it under the name of “ Heaven,” or as a country which they will enter after death. Few, however, think of it in its relation to existing nature ; yet so to regard it is little less important to enlarged and encouraging views of Life, for it brings heaven into our daily thoughts, as a living, familiar, and practical Reality, a thought for the present, for the fields and the woods, for the hills and the valleys, instead On the Creation, Chap. xliv. EVIDENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 183 of only for the future, at church on Sundays, and nothing so fills the soul with bright ideas. How differently the minds of men are constituted with regard to particular kinds of truth, we are perfectly aware. Some are made to super- stition, some to enthusiasm, others are inapt for either ; so that what in many cases men fancy to be contest for “ truth,” is simply comparison of their mental tastes, just as they compare their physical likings over the dining-table, and fancy they are contending for what is best. Oftentimes, without question, this will account for their insolicitude. Inductive minds,” says Whewell, those which have been able to discover laws of nature, have also commonly been ready to believe in an Intelligent Author of nature ; while deductive minds, those which have employed themselves in tracing the consequences of laws discovered by others, have been willing to rest in laws without looking beyond to an Author of law^s.” So with the view^s men take of the material world, its substance, derivation, and life. Deduc- tive minds are content with the study of matter ; inductive minds feel themselves invited to look further. But it is still a question of willingness, since nothing is ever sought except from the heart. There is something more even than willing- ness wanted. Before we can thoroughly recognize and ap- prove a truth superior to the region of the senses, our moral character must have risen into harmony with it. It follows that the spiritual world is not a thing to be argued about. We should never argue with a man about things which require for their understanding a higher plane than he has risen to ; until he has lifted himself into the requisite soul, he cannot be expected to see with similar eyes. Show him how and where to learn, but do not argue with him till he is on a level with your own vision. Hence, too, the utter worthlessness of the usual objection to the doctrine of the spiritual world, that it has no place in popular systems of 184 PROOF IN ITS VARIOUS KINDS. philosopliy. Some men reject it unconditionally — they simply do not believe/’ It is very convenient to conceal incuriousness and ignorance under the name of scepticisniy and thus invite the community to suppose that superior acuteness has detected unsoundness in what actually has never been even looked at. 110. Certainly, the proofs of spiritual things are not of the same kind as those of material ones. A man must not expect the same species of proof that there are angels, as of the existence of a railway or a tree. What visible, sen- suous proof is to the material, philosophical induction is to the spiritual, and when this is assisted and borne out by Eevelation, it is not merely as good a kind of proof, but an incomparably better and more cogent one. Not from the substance, time, and space of the material world, is the spiritual world to be judged of. Like the soul, which is a dweller in it, it must be thought of purely from the soul. This is the indispensable course in every inquiry that seeks to end in something better than grossest materialism. It is because people will persist in carrying their material ideas with them, wherever they go, that the soul itself has become a mere tradition, and the idea of immortality profaned into a supposed rebuilding of the rotten carcase of flesh and blood. While we should unceasingly strive to be men of sense, we should remember that this is not to be simply creatures of the senses. The external senses are among man’s richest inheritances, still are they only the Fine steps whereby the Queenly Soul Comes down from her bright throne to view the mass She hath dominion over. The man who attends only to what his senses inform him of, imprisons and kills the better half of his nature. He may acquire tolerable knowledge of outlines, weights, and THE SENSES AND THE IMAGINATION. 18 o colors, but a philosopher he can never be. With the dia grams he may become conversant, but not with that sublime geometry and universal arithmetic, the constructions of which form the real history of nature. The philosophy which the outer senses teach, dwells where they do, on the surface of nature. Their business is simply with effects. Causes, and spiritual things are seen by the internal, poetic, seventh sense — that divine faculty which men call the Ima- gination, the clear-seeing spiritual eye whereby the loftier and inmost truths of the universe, whether they be scientific, or religious, or philosophical, can alone be discerned. We are apt to suppose that to acquaint ourselves with nature, dili- gent observation and experiment will suffice. Not so. Na- ture has secrets which Imagination only can penetrate. So grievously has the imagination been perverted — so widely has the fancy been mistaken for it — so bad, in consequence, is its current repute as to its relation to Truth, that the mere mention of it, in connection with the subject in hand, will probably provoke many a smile, and in the charitable awaken compassion. It will be found, nevertheless, that all the greatest minds the world has produced, in any depart- ment of inquiry or of wisdom, have been so by virtue of their imagination. The imagination is not, as many sup- pose, hostile to truth. “So far from being an enemy to truth, the imagination,” says Madame de Stael, “ helps it forward more than any other faculty of the mind.” Of course there are such things as diseased and prostituted imaginations, but the abuse of the faculty is neither its qua- lity or design. Imagination rightly so called, presu23poses an enlarged and tranquil mind, which having in its command a wide property in living nature and its laws, steps to un- discovered things from the standard of the known. “ That,” says Goethe, “ is no true imagination which goes into the vague, and devises things that do not exist.” Keason, or to 186 FUNCTIONS OF THE IMAGINATION. use a pieciser term, common sense, the very arbiter of Truth, and imagination, rightly regarded, are each other’s conu'plemeni. To esteem them as contrary comes of the very same mistake as that which asserts reason and faith to be foes. As the perfection of human nature is, in the body, the union of strength and beauty, so in the intellect is it the union of common sense and imagination. Again deceiving themselves, many suppose that the imagination is constantly needing a check. Say rather that it constantly needs the spur. Especially is this the case in Science and Eeligion, which instead of having suffered, as it has been taught, from excess of imagination, suffer rather from not being as hos- pitable to it as they ought. What is idolatry, but inapti- tude to rise, on the pinions of the imagination, from the symbol to the thing symbolized ? What other than imagi- nation is the soul and centre of the very highest act of reli- gion, or faith ? To science, to philosophy also, imagination is nothing less than pioneer. The Columbus of the human mind, imagination opens the way for observation and expe- riment, which left to themselves, know not in what direc- tion to proceed, and find their way, if at all, slowly and by accident ; it provides us with the clue to what we seek, and enables us to anticipate the answ^er we shall receive. Every true investigation is the working out of some noble idea of the imagination ; no great discovery was ever made without employing it. It is the vital characteristic of the Davys, the Owens, the Faradays, the Herschels — of all to whom the world is indebted for its highest scientific wealth. Genius itself might be defined as imagination well directed and well regulated. With all his science, so called, the m-imagina- tive man gives us only the osteology of the rainbow; it is the imaginative or poetic one who delineates its life and beauty. Like prisms, the men of imagination convert colorless light into ex(|uisitc hues ; in their hands does the merest matter THE HIGHEST TRUTHS BEYOND PROOF. 187 of prosaic detail become lustrous and glorified. Witness Garth Wilkinson’s noble book on the Human Body, which, were it re-written in verse, would be the finest poem in the world. Like its subject, it is matter and spirit united, and “ common sense” from beginning to end. 111. To attempt, therefore, to prove that there is a spiritual world, i. e., in the way that a material or physical thing is proved, is, after all, superfluous. Those to whom it is inte- resting are conscious of it of themselves; and the opposite class logic would make no wiser. In a certain sense it is above and beyond proof ; yet not strangely and peculiarly so. Not one of the greatest truths admits of proof commonly so called. We feel them. The highest of all, or the conscious- ness of God, we ascend into intuitively from our conscious- ness of self. That God exists, and that it was he who created the world, and who sustains it, we can neither prove” to another, nor have “proved” to ourselves; and the same with the soul, and the spiritual world, and the life to come. For what, in fact, is it “ to prove,” but to trace a subordinate proposition up to a higher, or rather, to a primary truth ? The nearer that proposition is to God and heaven, the further is it away from what is proveable. Were we, in short, to refuse to receive anything until “proved,” we should remain strangers for ever to the-noblest and most animating subjects of contemplation. Proof, rigid, mathematical proof, belongs only to inferior truths, and it is only inferior minds that make it the condition of their acceptance. If such minds be often characterized by their credulity, they are still oftener marked by their mcredulity. “ Ignorance is always incredulous; the amplest knowledge has the largest faith.” It is right, without doubt, to desire proof; it is a man’s duty to desire it; but then he must remember that many things are ttnproveable, or rather, that things are proveable in dif- ferent ways. The heart and imagination have their eyes as 188 SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. well as the head and the understanding. Great minds, or those in which the capacity for reading truth is quickest and highest, are not simply intellectuar’ minds. They know what they have to believe on the showing of the feelings and the imagination, and of such things they never demand “proof.’’ Not he is the wise man who cunningly thinks to take nothing on the word of the imagination, but he who takes what nature intends he should. The proof, the essen- tial and best proof of the divine origin of Christianity and the Bible, does not consist in those weary piles denominated the Evidences, historical, archaeological, and so forth, which commend themselves only to low and unenviable schools of thought, but in its felt adaptation to the needs and aspira- tions of the soul. 112. Scientific considerations may be adduced notwith- standing, both in proof of the Spiritual world, and of its causative action into the physical. Why have many ani- mals, especially the saurians, the power of reproducing amputated members? How is it that when the foot or the tail of a lizard is torn off, a new one sprouts in its place? One of two things, either “nature performs a miracle,” which is an indolent hypothesis ; or else, which is a sufficient and reasonable explanation, material substances mould them- selves universally upon preexistent spiritual forms, as upon a model, and wait upon them as servitors. The reason usually assigned, namely, that the lower we descend in the scale of organization, the more is life diffused throughout the organism, is correct to a certain point, but it leaves the enigma where it was. It is not enough to be told that in the lower animals the vital mass which appears as brain in the higher kinds, is dispersed throughout the body; and that it is owing to this dis])ersion of the great centre of life into many small, sej)arate centres, that the tentacula of polyps, tlie rays of the star-lish, the entire head of the snail, will PLANTS IN RELATION TO THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 189 grow again if cut off. The question still remains — why? Life, like any human constructive power, cannot work with- out a pattern ; nervous centres are but instrumental.* Why the wonderful privilege of replacing lost members of the body is enjoyed only by the lower tribes of animals, and not by the higher, is that the latter are enabled to make them- selves amends for such losses in other ways. The office of one limb or member, to an extent sufficient to the necessities of life, can, in effect, be executed by another; while man, for his part, has the resources of mechanical contrivance in addition. The more helpless a creature is, the more amply is it always befriended with compensating gifts. 113. So with plants. Why does the acorn always produce an oak, and never an elm or an apple-tree; why the bulb of the hyacinth always the verisimilitude of its fragrant cluster, and never a cowslip or fleur-de-lis? Simply because in the acorn the spiritual substratum of the oak already in effect exists ; and in the bulb, in like manner, the spiritual form or vegetable soul of the flower. Hence the multifor- mity of the beautiful pictures in wood and field, and their return to us, year by year. Every wild flower comes back in its perfect lineaments; in the early spring the golden celandine and the coltsfoot; then the Mayflower and the woodruff, then the forget-me-not, bathing its feet at the w^ater-side ; and so onwards till the purple crocus of October. True, they unfold themselves from roots and seeds, lying concentrated as it were till their proper season ; but wanting a spiritual form to clothe with stem and leaf, a seed could * The power of reproducing lost parts which made that beautiful little creature the Hydra such a miracle to first observers, and sug- gested its zoological name, appears to exist in scarcely inferior de- gree in the Actinias or Sea-anemones. On its prevalence in the Star- fishes consult Forbes. 190 6P1IUTUAL FORMS UNDERLYING MATERIAL. no ixj.ore grow than a grain of sand. The real reason of tlio flowers is that every line of beauty in nature is the expres- sion of a divine thought, and inherits the iiriinortality of its first development in the spiritual world. It is in spiritual philosophy, and in this only, that we have an answer also to the puzzling question, why it is that the mules, or hybrids, both animal and vegetable, cannot permanently produce themselves; why also the graft will only consort with a tree of the same species as itself Material forms may be coupled, and a cross be procured for a brief period, but it is impos- sible in the same way to establish spiritual forms, and with- out these, as their prototypes, material forms cannot be pro- pagated. The best introduction to knowledge of what con- stitutes a ‘‘species,’’ either in Zoology or Botany, is to be sought in the philosophy of spirit, and its relation to matter. 114. So even with inorganic forms. Why do salts and metals always crystallize in determinate shapes, their pro- portions and angles invariably the same? Let a number of different salts be dissolved in water, and they will sort themselves out, unassisted, and re-adjust and re-crystallize their particles in the precise polyhedra they originally pos- sessed. Clearly, as in the former case, this is because there are underlying spiritual forms, sustained by the Divine life, and which, by virtue of that life, draw the particles together, each to its own body. The terms chemical affinity, chemical attraction, power, property, agency, vis Jormatrix, &c., cur- rently used when speaking of the consolidation of inorganic matter, denote nothing more than the action of the Divine life, under different methods, through the medium of spiritul creations in the first place. 115. On the dim and half-traditional perception that or- ganic forms repose upon an interior spiritual form, was built the Alchemists’ beautifid doctrine of the palingenesis^ or resuscitation by art, of the spirits of plants and flowers. THE alchemist’s DOCTRINE OF PALINGENESIS. 191 ‘‘Never/’ says the historian of the Curiosities of Literature, “was a philosophical imagination more beautiful than that exquisite palingenesis of the admirable school of Borelli, Gaffarel, and Digby.” The way in which the resuscitation was supposed to be brought about, was to burn a flower to ashes, and place them in a phial; then to add a certain chemical mixture, and warm it; when there would slowly rise a delicate apparition of stalk, and leaf, and blossom, successively, faithful as the lovely transcripts of scenery in still water, “the phantastical plant” disappearing into no- thingness as the heat gradually declined. Southey, in the second volume of the “ Omniana,” gives a full account both of the doctrine and of the manipulation requisite to pro- duce these curious phantoms. That they were actually exhibited by the alchemists, there would seem to be no doubt; having been produced, it is not unlikely, by tracing the figures of the plants and flowers on the glass reputed to contain their spirits, with chloride of cobalt, drawings made with which salt are invisible till brought near the fire. So firmly was the doctrine held by the honest, that it was adduced as an argument for the resurrection of man.* Perhaps the Hamadryads of ancient poetry, nymphs who were born with trees when they rose out of the ground, who lived in them, and who died when they died, were but their spiritual forms, separated and personified by fancy. “ Trees,” * Disraelfs account of the Palingenesis is under the head “ Dreams at the Dawn of Philosophy.’’ On the practical part of it, see Boyle’s Philosophical Works, abridged, vol. i., p. 69, “Surpris- ing things performable by Chemistry,” and the Philosophical Trans- actions for 1674, vol. ix., p. 175. Palingenesis, as a word, is simply the Greek for resurrection, learnedly illustrated by Mr. Trench in his New Testament Synonymes. Theodore de By eke applies it to the revival of letters, “Oratio de palingenesis Literarum in Terris nostris.” Leyden, 1672. 192 MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM. says a lively Frenclimaii, ‘‘are animated; they have their enjoyments, their grief, their sleep, and their loves. The ancients placed a nymph under their rind. To he sure she is there! Life is a very pretty nymph; we ought to love her wherever she is found.” Ilow beautifully does another of the same country allude to his love of trees, and their influence on his imagination, regretting that there are no longer any Dryads, or it would have been among these that he would have formed an attachment in which his heart should find its home.* 116. In fine, recognition of the spiritual world, as the foundation of the material one, and in connection with it, of the momentary influx of the Divine life into every ob- ject and atom of creation, the spiritual world receiving that life primarily, and the material world by derivation from it, is the beginning of all genuine philosophy. Unperceiving these two great, fundamental truths, the whole kingdom of truth is beclouded: only as men learn to appreciate and to apply them, does their knowledge begin to live. “What but apparitions,” says Coleridge, “can belong to a philoso- phy which satisfies itself when it can explain nature me- chanically, that is, by the laws of Death, and brands with the name of Mysticism every solution grounded in Life?” “As Nature,” says Dr. Braun, “without -man, presents externally only the image of a labyrinth without a clue, scientific examination which denies the internal, spiritual foundations of nature, leads only to a chaos of unknown matters and forces. From this dark chaos no bright path leads up.” Yet, ordinarily, it is precisely the live facts from which men of science turn away! “Nothing is more evident,” says one of the shrewdest writers of our day, “than that the men of facts are afraid of a large number of * IloBseau. Confessions, book ix. MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM. 193 important facts. All the spiritual facts about us, of which there are plenty, are denounced as superstition. Not only are they not received by that courtesy which takes off its grave hat to a new beetle or a fresh vegetable alkaloid, but they are treated by it worse than our vermin.’’ We do not seek to disparage the efforts of the non-spiritual. Whoever faithfully explains one of ‘‘the things that do appear,” assists in explaining the hidden and invisible ones which are not seen, and deserves approbation and gratitude accord- ingly. Let him, with equal courtesy, not undervalue the efforts of the “spiritual;” falling into the error of those “fools” and “blind” of old, who knew not whether was greater, the gold of the temple, or the temple that sanctified the gold. The “spiritualist” may seem mad to the material- ist, — and mad he is, if merely a spiritualist; but how much more sane is the mere man of science, who seeking the living among the dead, values the tabernacle more than the occu- pying spirit? 17 I CHAPTER X! GBOUKnS OF TIFF VA FT OTIS FFASF OF FIFF— Continued. CO RIlFSrON OFNCJJ OF NATURE ANJ) MINI), 117. Correspondence, or the science of the relation of the two worlds, i. 6 ., of the objects and phenomena of the material, to the ty^jical forms and noumena of the spiritual, is the key and Open Sesame! to every species of human knowledge. With correspondence for our guide, perhaps nothing is absolutely unintelligible; without it, the com- monest things are clouded. To right conceptions of the un- seen it is indispensable at the very outset. Most of the metaphysical difficulties which surround revealed theology, really originate in neglecting the light which Correspondence is fitted to throw upon them; the phenomena of the senses find in it their only true solution. Vast as nature itself, of course it can here be only commended to minds zealous in pursuit of genuine wisdom, excej^t in so far as relates to the lease of life. 118. To this end it will suffice that we consider the parti- cular correspondence, derived from the general, which nature holds with the faculties and emotions of the Soul, that won- derful and delicious concord whereby the sunshine, the sea, everything in nature is so companionable, and which gives to the soul a kind of omnipresence. The ground of this concord is that man, as to first principles, is a synthesis of the spiritual world, and thus of the material world which clothes and represents it. As a concave mirror contains 194 NATUKE A SECOND HOMO, 195 pictures in little of all the thousand objects of a beautiful landscape, so in the soul of man is contained an epitome of all the forces and principles that underlie the works of God, whether visible or invisible. The poets and philosophers call him a microcosm, ov ^‘little world;’’ ‘^the kingdom of heaven,” says holy writ, ‘Ts within you.” External nature is not the independent thing, having no connection with man, which we are apt to suppose. It is at once a second logos, and a second homo. It is so varied, so lovely, so ex- quisitely organized, because of the variety, the loveliness, the exquisite composition, primarily of the spiritual world, secondly of the human soul. The sun, the stars, trees, flowers, the seq., rivers, animals, exist, not irrespectively and independently of man, but because of him. In him are all of these, along with spring, summer, autumn, and winter, light and darkness, heat and cold, all natural objects and phenomena whatever, only after another manner, felt instead of seen, as sentiments and emotions, instead of physical in- carnations. Were they not in him, there would be none of them anywhere else. ‘‘Had I not had the world in my soul from the beginning,” says Goethe, “I must ever have remained blind with my seeing eyes, and all experience and observation would have been dead and unproductive. The light is there, and the colors surround us, but if we bore nothing corresponding in our own eyes, the outward appa- rition would not avail.” When, therefore, we admire nature, when w^e love it, it is virtually admiration of the spiritual and immortal, and this is why the love of nature is so powerful a help towards loving God. Hence also the concurrence of Science and Metaphysics, wliich are con- cerned with things essentially the same, only presented under different aspects and conditions. So intimate is the corres- pondence even between the body of man, and the faculties of the soul, that Klencke has built upon it an entire system 196 THE UNIVERSE A HIEROGLYPH. of organic psychology, incited perhaps by the hint of Lord Bacon, when he says that ‘‘unto all this knowledge of the concordances between the mind and the body, that part of the inquiry is tlie most necessary which considereth of tlie seats and domiciles which the several faculties do take and occupy/’ We little think how near, by correspondence, the body is like the soul, and the soul like the spiritual world. Novalis says truly that “we touch heaven when we lay our hand on a human body.” Think how the face is the epi- tome of the body, repeating in little its every organ and every function, and we see why the face is of all natural mysteries the very grandest. That plants and animals were created, and light and darkness ordained prior to the crea- tion of man, is no objection to their being effects or results of him, because although the last to be actually moulded, he was the first in conception and plan, all the works of Almighty wisdom being prefigurative of His own image and likness. 119. It is no new doctrine that such a concord or corres- pondence exists between nature and the soul of man ; it is no new discovery ; neither is it a deduction from any new or narrow circle of experiences. “ The world at large is the school that believes in it, and daily life, in all its immense detail, is the theatre of its exemplification.” Language rests entirely upon the sublime fact that the universe is a hieroglyph and metaphor of human nature; there is no poetry that has not sprung from the deep feeling of it, and that does not owe to it all its eloquence and graces ; all philosophy implies and unconsciously proclaims it; the magic, idolatry, and mythology of the primsevals ; the “ language of flowers,” emblems, fable, allegory, the rites and ceremonies of religion, are all founded upon it, and are alone explicable by it. It is no less the ground of our most living enjoyments. The sweetness of a kind look, the solace CORRESPONDENCE THE GROUND OF FRIENDSHIP. 197 of a loving smile, come purely of the correspondence of the features with the soul within ; the pleasure we derive from music, scenery, flowers, comes of our feeling, when in their presence, the sweet sense of kindred.’’ The light of the soul, like the light of the sun, makes everything beautiful on which it shines, but it is by being reflected from it. As we can only give to others what they can take, so can we only be affected by what is congenerous to ourselves — the secret of all loves, friendships, and social unions. The in- most spring of our attachments to one another is our Cor- respondence. Hence, too, that beautiful innate image in the heart of the beings we most deeply and permanently love, which gives to our first sight of them almost a sense of recognition. Some are never strangers. But soon as seen, the soul as if by instinct Springs towards them with resistless force, and owns Congenial sympathy. 120. Save for the unity of the mind with the inmost, spiritual essence of the world, nature would not only be in- comprehensible to man — not only be no object of his intelli- gence, but not even an object of his consciousness. Only by virtue of our correspondence with nature do we become familiar with it. There can be no reciprocation where there is no similarity. Were it not a mirror, it would be a void, as to the brutes it really is, since they see it not, and feel it not. Not that there is any of our proper life in the things of nature. They are instinct with spiritual vitality, but only in man is spiritual vitality exalted into spiritual Life, since he alone is intelligent of God. Doubtless there is great diversity in men’s estimate and appreciation of natural objects, and thence in the pleasure derived from them, but this so much the more substantiates the principle. Why n 198 CORRESPONDENCE A MORAL AGENT. some minds are most delighted by flowers, others by birds, others by moniitains, others by trees, even by particular species of living things, as when one loves above all other birds the industrious, sociable rooks, it is that the corre- spondent spiritual principles are in those minds preeminently developed. The whole of nature is in every mind, but some one part of it more actively than the remainder; while all men are joint heritors of the total of the world, every man has a little piece of it to himself Every man has a secret aflinity, a secret love, a secret pleasure, known in its fullness and rewards, like his conscience, only to himself and to his Maker. Were we wise, this great principle would be made the basis of Education, which should never fail to respect the correspondences of individual minds, and cannot be ex- pected to be efficient till it is recognized. The efficacy of correspondence is truly wonderful. While new feelings are awakened, old, familiar ones are heightened and improved by the presence of the natural object that represents them. Beneath the still skies of night we become more reverent ; looking at the green leaves of spring, more young in hope. Why do the tenderly-attached find such happy hours in sweet, sequestered, rural pathways, where the wild flowers blow, and the clear streams ripple, if it be not that nature mirrors and echoes their affections, and enriches them with a new enthusiasm ? Hence it is also that those who love tenderly always feel peculiarly endeared to one another wdiile participating in the admiration of works of Art, which, fulfilling the highest end of Art, namely, to excite emotions, and not merely awaken recollection, speak to the soul by their true grandeur. A chief reason why so much originally good feeling becomes chilled and debased, is that^ we do not oftener quit the world that man has made, for the coinj)any of our kindred in the world that God made. Im- muring ourselves in the narrow boundary of our parlors. SIGNIFICANCE OF EXTERNAL NATURE. 199 we cannot properly expand ; in the presence of nature we feel great and free, like that which we have before our eyes.” Things again, which away from their correspondent imagery seem weak and trifling, in its presence become beautiful and noble. “ Love-scenes,” says an amiable writer, “ such as in a parlor look foolish and absurd, assume a very different aspect when seen amid the soft hush and spiritual beauties of an evening river-side, or in the light of an autumn moon. We feel then that the beautiful picture has received its proper setting. Who has forgotten the moonlight scene in the Merchant of Venice, or the interview of Waverley and Flora near the waterfall ?” Lastly, it is in the convergence towards him of all its nature and attributes, that the thoughtful man finds the dignity of the world consist. “ He reads the mystery of human existence in the relations of the forms which encompass him ; and discovers the solution of nature’s problems in his own physical* and mental activi- ties.” He sees that it is the same life which connects events and phenomena, whether in him or without him, and with the change from terrestrial to human, finds it glorify. 121. External nature being then what w^e find it, by vir- tue of previous ideas and affections in the world of spirit, and of its synthesis, the human soul, the phenomena, changes, and vicissitudes which take place in it, will be so many correspondences and translations of what occurs ther-e. Here, accordingly is the first solution of the problem of the lease of life. Why the oak and the elephant live so long ; why the gourd and the insect die so soon, is that the princi- ples, sentiments, and emotions in the human soul to which these things severally correspond, are of the same relative constitution and capacity of endurance. How many are the emotions which we feel, year by year, growing and strength- ening within us, like noble trees ; how many others do we feel spring up, blossom, and pass away like the day-lily ! 200 THE LAW OF USE. The whole matter of the ‘‘gro^vth of the mind” is translata- ble into the history of the growth of nature, its changes, de- cays, and rejuvenescences. What is longa^val in tlie soul, is longseval also in nature ; what is ephemeral in the world, is the picture of something ephemeral in ourselves. 122. The law of Use, wherein consists the second grand cause of the diversity in the lease of life, is like Correspond- ence, vast as creation itself, seeing that subserviency to an- other's wants and happiness is the jmrpose for which all things have been designed, and the world framed and me- thodized so admirably. The greater the amount of the dif- ference between any two or more objects, the stronger is the proof of their necessity as regards the general welfare, and thus of their having some special use in their respective spheres, whether we can perceive the exact nature of it or not. The difference, for example, between an elephant and a rose, and between a rose and a pebble, is the precise measure of their value and importance in the collective economy and constitution of things. Wherein these two qualities consist, of course is a separate matter of inquiry, and falls to the province of the accurate observer of nature. 123. All uses are referable to one or other of three great ends ; they were designed for these ends, and they are per- petually promotive of them. The first is the physical wel- fare of the living organisms of our planet ; the second, the instruction and delight of man; the third, which presupposes and ensues upon the other two, is the glory of God who or- dained them, and for whose ‘‘pleasure” all things were cre- ated. Pliysical uses comprise all those by which things reciprocally sustain one another in health and comeliness, and j)rcserve their respective races extant upon the earth. The soil supports the plant; the plant feeds the animal; both n^pay all that is rendered them, and with interest; and strengthened by what they have received, succor their own DEATH NEEDFUL TO HUMAN HAPPINESS. 203 species. According to the needs of each superior thing is the adaptation of every inferior one that supports it, as re- gards structure, configuration, and vital economy ; every plant and animal, every bird and tree, every mineral even, is so constituted as to enable it to minister to a nobler na- ture ; the term of its life is exactly adequate and proportion- ate to its office, and concludes when the duties of that office have been fulfilled. The tree that provides timber lives for centuries ; the corn required for food is ripe in a summer. 124. Nature ministers to the instruction and delight of man by shadowing intellectual and religious truth ; and this great use it most efficiently subserves in the circumstance of its incessant change. Change, at least in the material world, implies death ; and death, for its full efficacy and im- pressiveness as a monitor, needs to be various and wonderful as life. Were there no such thing as external nature, man would be an irremediably ignorant savage ; he becomes ci- vilized and intelligent by the just contemplation of its mys- teries. Nature is the grand, rich book of symbols which we prove it, not simply in the significance of its forms, but in the significance and lessons of the phenomena of its mortal- ity, Were all things like the granite mountain-peaks, that have caught the first beams of immemorial morning suns, enduring forever, though we might wonder more, our love and true spiritual activity would be less. The very frailty of things excites a tender interest in them, and when to this is joined an almost endless diversity as to the period of their stay, they become to us store-houses of curious wisdom and satisfaction. Where would be the gladness of the spring if the primroses blossomed throughout the year, or the gran- deur of the ancient woods if the trees were but children of the summer? Man is a thousand times happier from the fact of some plants being annuals, others perennials, others longseval trees, than were all to die at a common age. ' 202 DEATH A BENEFICENT ORDINATION. 125. Finally is the use of all things in reference to the glory of their Almighty Framer ; and tliis, as in tlie pre- ceding case, is exalted by wluit to a small and narrow view, is their very weakness. AVhy the mass of organic nature is so brief-lived, why it seems to exist only to die, is that, taking a thousand years together, the amount of enjoyment (or of picturesque on the part of what is not competent to enjoy), shall be greater than were it to survive for the whole period. The larger the nund)er of beings that enter the world, whether by fertility of individuals, or by successive renewals, one generation after another, so much the more scope is there for that happiness and physical beauty which it is the Divine ‘‘pleasure” to communicate and sustain. Doubtless, a solitary tree, a single animal of each kind, or of any kind, attests the hand of God as powerfully as a world-full, and a single generation as powerfully as a hun- dred ; but God is essential Love, and the nature of love is to give ; its satisfaction is to surround itself with receptacles for the blessings which it burns to bestow, and in a finite kingdom such receptacles are best multiplied — perhaps only so — by the magnificent institutions of Death and Kenewal, whereby myriads are successively introduced upon the scene, instead of a few antique and venerable ones remaining al- ways. It is infinitely more to the glory of God that ten men should live for seventy years a-piece, one after another, than that there should be only one instead of ten in the same period. It makes ten happy lives instead of only one, for seventy years properly used, are as good as seven hun- dred. In a word, whatever advantage it is to man’s wel- fare, either physical or moral, tluit the lease of life should be various, is also a glory to God, because all human en- lightenment and delight shine back upon the heaven of their origin. 126. A question yet remains in connection with this sub- LEASES OF EXTINCT ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 203 ject, namely, — Let the maximum duration of the individuals constituting a species be what it may, — a few months or a thousand years, — does a period arrive in the history of the species when, like a title of nobility without an heir, it abso- lutely ‘^dies out,^’ every individual becoming extinct? Geo- logy makes it plain that during the infinite past, species of animals and plants now no longer existing, successively occupied the surface of the earth, in considerable variety and amazing numbers; the legitimate conclusion is, there- fore, in favor of the affirmative. How long the particular species now alive have been upon the earth, how long they will continue, man can neither know nor surmise; it is suf- ficient for the principle that they can be shown to have had predecessors, and that those predecessors have wholly dis- appeared from the ranks of the living. The highest interest attaches to the existing organic population of the world, both as to its beginning and its final destiny. The origin of noxious plants and animals; the descent of the various races from a single individual or a single pair of each kind, or on the other hand, from a plurality ; their dispersion over the earth’s surface ; the extermination of different species by the hand of man ; and many similar matters, treated as they deserve, would suffice to fill whole volumes. Here they must be dismissed with the bare mention. 127. The general question as to the lease of life in species being answered, there arise upon the solution other and more curious problems : — What were the leases of those anterior species? — Why have they not continued to the present time? — Under what laws were the new and superseding forms in- troduced? Geology solves them in part, or as regards the proximate, physical reasons; and no portion of this noble science is more interesting and satisfactory. But Geology of itself is insufficient; we are compelled to fall back, as in everything else, on the spiritual laws of which physical ones 204 THE PRE-ADAMITE WORLD. are Effects. Then we find that the same laws wliich pri- marily determine the duration of the individuals of a species, determine also the duration of the species as a whole. They are problems no less magnificent than vast, if only from the immensity of time covered by the events and changes they have reference to. Six thousand years, or thereabout, the period we are accustomed to regard as com- prising the history of life, and as taking us to the beginning of creation, is in reality but the pathway to a point from which we look forth on an expanse without horizon. Yet not hopelessly, because with all the sublime anti(piity in the works of the Almighty, stretching so far back, and upon a scale so grand, there is indissolubly connected the fact of his Unchangeableness, assuring us that he was always employed as now; that we shall find all in perfect harmony; that all that exists, as worlds, systems of worlds, contents of worlds, to-day, is but a continued exemplification of original and eternal principles; thus that all lies within the reach and compass of our understanding. 128. The spiritual laws alluded to are again those of Correspondence and of Use, which apply to the ante-hominal world no less than to the existing state of things. The pre- Adamite plants and animals, like those which now surround us, were material shows of forms contained in the spiritual world, flowing from them in the same manner, and possessed therefore of similar aflinities with principles and affections in the soul of man, which is the spiritual world in little. For though later in production, as to time, man virtually and essentially preceded every Spirifer and Trilobite, every Coralline and Conferva. Prior to all worlds, man is the oldest idea in creation ; nothing was ever moulded into form, or vitalized by the Divine breath, that had not a prefigura- tive reference to somctliing eventually to be exhibited in him. The geological history of our planet is the biography GEOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. 205 of human nature, told in the imagery of correspondence; all those great phenomena of stratification, disruption, change of surface, and succession of living being, which make the annals of our earth such glorious reading, are to the true reader a narrative in symbol of his own emotional and intellectual development. From the time when darkness was upon the face of the deep, through all the grand sequences of light, land and water, vegetation and animal life, the record is of man’s advance from the state of vacant infancy up to that of ripe and opulent maturity. Did we know the particular correspondence of the extinct plants and ani- mals that once lived upon the earth, we should discern in every one of them a picture of something in the mind or heart of childhood ; we should comprehend the scheme of sequence in which they successively appeared, the ground of their various duration, why they were of such and such figure, habits, and degree of bulk. The great size of many of the pre-Adamite animals, and their strange and unshapely forms, consist, we may see at a glance, with the wild, am- bitious phantasies of early youth, when the Arabian Nights are thought to be solid facts ; — the small number of distinct species, relatively to the present numbers, corresponds with its scanty stock of emotional experiences and ideas. Who is there that, wandering through the museums of memory, is not reminded of the time when the plains of his little world were trod by gigantic Mastodons and Dimotheria, and when in place of its now innumerable flowers and fruit-trees, there were only huge Calamites and Sigillarias. Thus will it be that Correspondence, in the ratio that men study this matchless science, will throw light on the history of the fossil fauna and flora of our globe. Its companion law, the great principle of Use, rightly brought to bear, will supply what more is wanting. For all these ancient forms of life had their uses to subserve, and doubtless their respective leases 18 206 LEASES COMMENSURATE WITH USES. were adapted to them. The plants, for example, whose compacted and bitumenized relics constitute Coal, must have been gifted with a duration and a prolific power commen- surate with the use they Avere destined to in the remote future; and the magazines once filled and covered in they would cease from living occupancy of the soil. CHAPTER XII. TMJE SPIBITUAL JEXrJtl^SSIOW OF FIFF,^ NATURE AND SEAT OF THE SOUE, 129. The spiritual expression of life is the prerogative of MAX. It is the gift which distinguishes him from all other animals; just as the organic life is that which distinguishes those animals, together with plants, and his own material body, from earth and stone. By virtue of his spiritual life, man is an emotional and intellectual being. By virtue of this he thinks, speaks, sings,* worships, loves, pities, weeps,f hopes, laughs, marries ; performs, in a word, the innumerable actions, internal and external, Avhich the observation of thousands of years has never once detected in any of the in- ferior orders of creation, but has established as the noble diagnosis of human nature. This also is the primary ground of his physical peculiarities. By virtue of his possessing a Soul, animated with spiritual life, the spine of man has those wonderful curves in it, and that curious pyramidal arrange- ment of bones, whereby he is enabled to stand erect. The more complicated brain than any other of the mammalia have; the smoothness and nakedness of his skin; the pecu- liar muscle for the extension of the fore-finger; the capacity for being tickled, and for blushing ; smiles and kisses ; the * Birds only whistle ; they do not sing. f The occasional flow of a few tears from the eyes of certain quad- rupeds, is not weeping, the true idea of which implies intelligent emotion, and strength rather than weakness. 207 208 THREE DEGREES OF LIFE IN MAN. breast of woman, so exquisitely unlike that of any otlier female animal, both in its shape during tlie flower of her age, and the longer retention of its normal form after the period of lactation; all these have their essential origin in that inner and regal life which links earth to heaven. Flowing from God cotcmporaneously, the spiritual and the organic life are the same in essence y the difference between them is simply one of expression. As jilaycd forth by the body, it is Organic life; as played forth by the soul, it is Spiritual life. Man, while a resident in the material world, is a recipient, therefore, not merely of oiie, nor even of two, but of three expressions of the Divine sustaining energy. Chemical affinity, cohesion, molecular attraction, &c., which are its lowest expression, sustain the elemental ingredients of his frame, the carbon, water, lime, and so forth. Organic life arranges and builds up those ingredients into apparatus, and impels the several portions to the due performance of some fixed duty. Spiritual life, which is the highest expres- sion, vitalizes and energizes his soul ; impelling it, after the same manner, to the exercise of its intellect and affections. The knowledge of the lowest expression of life constitutes Physics ; that of the organic, Physiology ; that of the highest or spiritual. Psychology. The latter may be defined as the science of the Life of God in man’s soul; physiology as that of the Life of God in his body. And as that life is essen- tially One, psychology and physiology, in their high, philo- sophic idea, are connected as soul and body, and each is an exponent of the other. What in relation to physiological life, arc called the “functions of the body,” pr the “functions of organization,” rc-ai^pcar in relation to the spiritual life, as the “intellectual powers,” the “operations of the mind,” &c., which are the same thing essentially, only expressed after a higher manner, according to the law of discrete de- grees. Functions in the body, faculties in the soul; the NATURE AND SEAT OE THE SOUL. 209 terms alter as tlie theatre changes. Doubtless there are broad distinctions in the mode of their procession. The phenomena of which physiology takes cognizance are both simultaneous and successive; those which belong to psycho- logy are successive only. “Physiological phenomena ex- hibit themselves as an immense number of series bound up together; psychological phenomena as but a single series. Thus, the continuous actions of digestion, circulation, respi- ration, &c., are also synchronous; but the actions constituting Thought occur, not simultaneously, but one after another.’’ Taken together, physiology and psychology meet as Philo- sophy, or the science of the antecedent unity of which the spiritual and the material are the dual development. 130. The spiritual expression of life is a perfectly distinct thing from the soul; which is no mere “principle,” either of intelligence as regards this world, or of immortality as regards the next; but a definite, substantial entity, as much a part of created nature as a flower or a bird; and so far from being Life, or even possessing any inherent or separate life, depends for existence, no less than the body which en- closes it, on continually renewed supplies from the Creator. “The inner man drops into metaphysical dust, as the outer man into physical, unless the parts be kept in coherence by some sustaining life; and that latter is no other than the life of the living God.” In itself, the soul is neither immor- tal nor indestructible. However common such epithets may be in books and sermons, the Bible knows nothing of them; though it unquestionably teaches that God having once created a soul, it pleases him to sustain it with life for ever; and to allow it to exercise that life freely, as if it were its own, just as the free exercise of the organic life is allowed to the body. The possession respectively of independent life and of derived life, constitutes the grand characteristic by which we distinguish at all times and in all places, between 18 * 210 POrULAR IDEAS CONCERNING THE SOUL. the Creator and the created. If not a generally-received distinction, even among philosophers, that the soul is one thing and its life another is at least the doctrine of the New Testament, where the Divine, vitalizing essence is discrimi- nated as while the vessel into which it is communicated is called by some such name as Thus, Tri^eu/ia ix Tdu deou eiar^Adzv iv auzde^;, ^‘the spirit of life from God entered into them;’’ (Rev. xi. 11,) r«c '^Tov tzetzeIexig fxkvcov ^ ‘Hhe souls of them that Avere beheaded.’’ (Rev. XX. 4.) The body is distinguished as acoim^ as in Matthew x. 28, ‘‘Fear not them which kill zo acofia^ but are not able to kill zr^v but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both (f'oyrj and ocoiia in hell.” 131. Rightly to conceive of the spiritual life, it is needful, accordingly, first to obtain clear ideas of its receptacle, the soul ; just as in order to the conception of physiological life, it is needful first to inquire into the composition of the body. If we are to judge by the loose, indefinite notions ordinarily entertained respecting the soul, even by intelligent people, a positive, coherent idea of it is one of the greatest desiderata of the age. How common is it to hear the soul alluded to as a mere abstract intellection; an ethereal, unimaginable, immortal something, located nobody knoAVS where, but sur- mised to be in the brain, and capable of subsisting, in the trans-sepulchral Avorld, in the most independent and isolated condition, free from any kind of connection Avith any kind of body. This is not philosophical, to say the least of it. Granted, the nature of the soul is a mystery ; a mystery, too, of which all the most grand and sacred part futurity alone can reveal. We shall compass it Avhen, and not before, our “eyes behold the King in his beauty,” Him who is “the end of problems and the font of certainties.” We should be thard^ful, indeed, that Ave feel it to be a mystery, for the mind that re])udiatcs or is insensible to the mysterious, is in- KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOUL ATTAINABLE. 211 accessible to the sublime. But to be mysterious is not nece>s- sarily to be inscrutable. The prime feature of mystery is that it recedes before wise and calm interrogation. Mystery, therefore, should never be allowed to deter. It ought rather to incite, especially when, as in the present instance, Eeve- lation stands ready to shed its clear and willing light, and assures us that to the earnest disciples of truth “it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” of which the Soul is indisputably one of the sublimest. “It is the essential mark of the true philosopher,” says Coleridge, “to rest satisfied with no imperfect understanding, so long as the impossibility of attaining a fuller knowledge has not been demonstrated.” While we reverently attempt not to be “wise above that which is written,” one of our highest duties is to strive, and that most studiously, to be wise “^^p to that which is written.” The reward is abundant, if we do but discover the nature of the difficulties, and what is within, and what beyond, the scope of our powers. 132. That a most partial and defective interpretation of the mystery is all that purely secular philosophy can achieve, may be as readily conceded as the enigmatical character of the theme itself; and recognizing this, it is no matter of surprise that Pagan antiquity bequeathed to us nothing but a mass of shapeless and contradictory hypothe- ses. The ancients’ ignorance of physiology was likewise a serious, perhaps fatal, impediment.* That a people claim- ing to be enlightened Christians, in a country like England, should not hold a single fixed and positive opinion on the * Anaximenes taught that the soul was nothing more than air, Socrates, in the Phjedo, jocosely remarks to the disciples of this doctrine, that surely their souls will be run away with by the wind, when they die, if of no better composition, and warns them against residing in an open and windy country ! 212 'NO ESTABLISHED DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL. nature of the soul, to say notliiug of an established doctrine, is, however, truly astonishing, and not a little reproachJuL An exalted theology, like a sound philosophy, never rests content with general, indetiiiitc ideas. It avails nothing to know the ancients’ deficiencies if we are careless about our own. Only by making the detection of their errors the means of true knowledge for ourselves, do we acquire a right to pity the ignorance of our predecessors, and to lay claim to an enlightenment which they had not. One would think that though no one else cared to do it, those at least whose entire solicitude is presumed to have reference to the soul, and whose studies and occupation so peculiarly qualify them, namely, the priests and ministers of religion, would never rest till they had enabled themselves to propound something intelligible and satisfactory. So far from it, the pulpit is mute, and its companion literature is barren.* Affirmations of the general fact of immortality are plentiful enough, we are aware. But this is not the question, nor is it a question at all. JsTo one from his heart disputes the general proposition of immortality; and it is notorious that even those who affect to deny it with their lips, confess it in their fears. The belief in immortality is a natural feeling, an adjunct of self-consciousness, rather than a dogma of any particular theology, or of any particular age or country, and is concurrent with the belief in an Infinite, presiding Spirit, which is allowed to be spontaneous and universal. What we want to be instructed in is, not that man is im- mortal, but what the Soul is; and this not so much as regards our future, as our present existence. This is the * Witli the exception of the Rev. J. Clowes’ Letters to a friend on tlie Human Soul, as being a Form and Substance deriving its life continually from God,” 1825, and the excellent little work of the K(;v. W. Mason the Human Soul.” THE SOUL OF MAN A SPIRITUAL BODY. 213 knowledge with regard to which intelligent curiosity seems dead, and which is so beclouded by error, yet which even the pulpit takes no trouble to purify and correct, and place before the world in its proper, illustrious beauty; as if it were quite unimportant that what is philosophically false can never be theologically true. 133. The soul of man, considered in its true character, namely, the seat and immediate organ of his emotional and intellectual life, is his spiritual body. The body of flesh and blood is only half the human being. Another body underlies it. There is a natural body,” says the Apostle, and there is a spiritual body.” By ‘‘ spiritual body” he plainly means a body altogether different from the ‘‘natural,” which is the material, or as Wiclif calls it, the “beestli” body ; yet by speaking of both in the present tense — saying of each that it now is — he gives us to understand that the two bodies are cotemporaneous and co-existent, so long, that is, as the natural one may endure. By adding that it is to be “ raised,” he intimates that this “ spiritual body” is the immortal portion of our being.* In this glorious revelation * It is scarcely necessary to point out to the intelligent reader that the “if^ in the English translation of these verses does not and cannot mean the dead material body, but man as to his personality, or consciousness of himself. He knows himself as “a natural body’^ while in this world; as “a spiritual body’^ in the next. This is proved by the word “ sown,” which refers, not as careless readers suppose, to the interment of one’s corpse in the grave, but to the birth of our living into the world. “ The time,” says Locke, “ that man is in this world, affixed to this earth, is his being sown, and not when, being dead, he is put in the grave, as is evident from St. Paul’s own words. For dead things are not sown ; seeds are sown, being alive, and die not till after they are sown.” &c. Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles, Works, vol. 3, p. 207. Ed. 1714. We shall see this more plainly in a future chapter. 214 THE TRANSFIGURATION. is thus furnished the “key to the mystery;’’ for everything which philosophy asserts to be constitutional to the soul is involved in the idea of a spiritual body, of a nature superior to the material one, and continuing to exist after that body expires ; and conversely, everything which is said by the Apostle concerning the spiritual body, is exactly what we should expect from an inspired writer, seeking to communi- cate a general notion of the soul and its destiny. But so far we have little more than a substitution of one name for another. What is this “ spiritual body?” Here historical Scripture comes to our aid. It is an admirable character- istic of the Bible that there is not a single doctrine enunci- ated in its didactic portions, but is somewhere illustrated in its histories; either in the actual histories, including the biographical notices, or in the ^i^dsi-histories, as the para- bles. Take, for instance, the history of the Transfiguration. During its progress, there were seen by the disciples, dvdpe(; duo, “ two men, which Avere Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory.” The event in question took place more than eighteen hundred years ago ; the bodies, therefore, in which the patriarchs appeared, could not have been the resuscitated and transformed material bodies Avhich it is commonly supposed will be re-attached to the soul at the day of judgment, “when the graves are opened, and the sea gives up her dead.” They must, nevertheless, have been real and substantial bodies, or they Avould not have been identified as Moses and Elias by spectators, who it is ex- pressly stated, were “ awake.” Elias (or Elijah) certainly is stated, in another place, to have been taken up into heaven by “a chariot and horses of fire;” but to the en- lightened reader of the Word of God, it is evident that he did not go as flesh and blood, seeing that these “ cannot in- herit the kingdom of heaven ;” and in any case there is no authority for supposing Moses to have gone in such a form. LAZARUS AND THE RICH MAN. 215 So in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Here too the several actors are represented as being perfectly well known to one another, and as holding the perfect human form, implied in their possessing the customary corporeal organs. The time of this parable is laid, it will be remem- bered, as prior to the ‘‘ day of judgment’’ and the “ resur- rection of the body,” as popularly thought of (suggesting, by the way, an enormous discrepancy between the popular notions and the doctrine of the parable), the rich man’s father and brethren b'eing still alive upon the earth. Here again, therefore, there is no material body present ; nothing but the sold; yet all the circumstances of the narrative imply bodies no less real, and no less truly organized and sensitive. What, then, is the inference to be drawn from these facts and divine teachings ? Clearly this ; that what is popularly called the soul” is what the Apostle terms the “ spiritual body and that the latter is a substantial, organ- ized form, exactly correspondent with the external, physical frame; that it presents a precisely similar assemblage of parts and features ; and that when disengaged from it at death, it still holds intact both the human configuration, and every lineament on which personal identity depends, and by which individuals are recognized and distinguished from one another. Thus that the soul is no will-o’-th’-wisp in the swamps of the cerebrum,” but an internal man; a body within a body; ‘^a life,” as Aretseus says of the womb, within a life ;” in the material body as God is in the uni- verse — everywhere and nowhere; everywhere for the en- lightened intellect, nowhere for the physical view; no more in the brain than in the toes, but the spiritual double” of the entire fabric. All the organs of the material body have soul in them, and serve the soul, each one according to its capacity, yet is the soul itself independent of them all, because made of another substance. And though it fill 216 man’s body a SE/ifES OF BODIES. the whole body, yet it taketh up no room in the body ; and if the body decrease, if any member be cut off or wither, the soul is not diminished, only ceaseth to be in that mem- ber it was before, and that without any hurt or blemish to itself’’* A beautiful image of their interconnection is sup- plied in the structure of bones^ which consist of inanimate earthy matter, and living gelatine, so intimately incorpo- rated that although the parts are really two, the seeming is of only one, atom answering to atom so completely that the whole of the earthy matter may be dissolved away by acid, or the whole of the gelatinous matter be burned by calcina- tion, and yet the form of the bone remain entire. The inner, spiritual body is represented in the gelatine; the outer, material one in the earthy matter. 134. It may assist us to form an idea of the spiritual body, if we consider the various parts and systems of organs of which the outer or material body is constructed. Man is in reality a series of human forms, one wrapped within the other, and successively more perfect and complete as we ap- proach the seat of his highest powers. Begin with the ske- leton. In this we have the rude image of a man, correct as far as it goes, showing his bulk, his stature, his general out- line. It is a skeleton, we may remark in passing, distinctly and absolutely human. No single bone of it exactly agrees with a bone of any other animal whatever. Next take the muscles. Separate these, and we again have a man, more perfect and substantial than the former, but still only an approach to the true idea, wanting the fullness of contour. Then take the veins. Here is a human figure again ; a drawing of the venous and arterial system includes the whole area of the body. Taking, however, lastly, the brain aiwJ nerves, we have a mucli closer resemblance. If every PaychosopUia, by N. Mosley, p. 18. 1653. GHOST-BELIEF. 217 nervous thread could be extracted and exhibited in its natu- ral position, the perfect human outline would be delineated. These several elementary structures, the skeleton, the mus- cles, the veins, the nerves, woven and interlaced together, form in their total the material body, the skeleton being least like the total, the nervous system the most like it. The Spiritual body lies within again, but higher and more exquisite in every circumstance and particular ; formed, not of material substance, but of spiritual ; invisible therefore, and intangible, except to organs formed of substance similar to i1;s own. What the skeleton is to the muscles, what the muscles are to the veins, what the veins are to the nerves, what all these together are to the man in his full physical integrity, as the continent of the whole, such is the material body in its totality to the spiritual. Hence, if we want to see what the soul is like, instead of taking a microscope, or an Essay on Immortality, all we have to do is to contem- plate the living and moving beauty of a human figure in its ripeness and perfection. The true ehojv ^aackcxij is the human body. 135. That the soul or spiritual body is a form in exact correspondence with the external, material body; that it presents a similar assemblage of parts and features; and that it undergoes no change in these respects when it casts off the material envelope, and enters the eternal world — un- less to acquire infinite access of beauty or distortion, accord- ing to its governing principle of conduct, good or evil — is involved in ghost-belief; a belief which, when rightly directed, has infinitely more truth in it than the dogmatic nonsense which describes the soul as a mere ‘‘ principle.'’ How often do we find men's actual, secret faith, ahead of their spoken Creeds and Articles ! The former comes of the truth-telling intuitions of the heart ; the latter are the manufacture of the less trustworthy head. Every one knows that there is 19 K 218 UNIVERSALITY OF TTTE RELIEF IN GHOSTS. such a thing as feeling a proposition to be true, tliough the understanding may be unable to master it. The feelings, it has been well remarked, are famous for “ hitting the nail on the head.’’ Unlike the conclusions of the intellect, which are shaped more or less by education and country, their voice is no solitary sound, but the utterance of essential and universal human nature. It is to our feeling rather than to our thinking, that all the sublimest arguments in the universe are primarily addressed. Where logic works out one truth, the heart has already realized twenty ; because love, which is the heart’s activity, is the profoundest and nimblest of philosophers. All things that live and are loveliest are born of the heart. This is why the ancients regarded the heart as the seat of Avisdom — not of knowledge, but of that primary, intuitive wisdom to which knowledge is only an appendix. Hence then the value of the fact that in all ages and nations there has existed an intuitional conviction that the spirit of the dead immediately enters the eternal world, carrying Avith it an unmistakable corporeal personal- ity ; and that it can re-appear, under certain circumstances, to the survivors.* It is obvious that the reappearance of the dead requires, as a necessary condition, that there shall be * ^ That the dead are seen no more,’’ said Imlac, “ I will not un- dertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. * * * This opinion, which prevails so far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth.” — Hasselas. From what remote source universal tradition may have derived this idea, would be a curious inquiry, and might be rendered im- portant. It is a pleasing subject, and imbued with that tender me- lancholy which peculiarly befits it for a mind of sensibility and fine taste. Its universality, independently of the testimony afforded it by revealed religion, is no small presumption of its being founded in fact.” — L)r. Good, Book of Nature, Scries iii., Lect. 1. ALL MEN AKE GHOSTS. 219 a spiritual body, perfect in form and feature, as in the case of Moses and Elias. Unfortunately, the actual, solemn truth of the matter has had so much that is Mse and foolish heaped upon it, as to be in itself well-nigh smothered. Eightly understood, ghosts are no mere offspring of vulgar, ignorant superstition and creduilty. Our prejudices and education may dispose us to think otherwise, but we should be slow in chiding opinions which have been embraced by any considerable portion of our fellow-men ; since the fact that a given doctrine has been widely accepted, and ear- nestly contended for, is a presumption that it contains a truth, or an aspect of a truth, essential to the complete ra- tional life of man. Most opinions are right up to a certain point, but with few men do they go far enough, or straight enough, to reflect the whole truth. All human beings are at this very moment ghosts ; but they do not so appear to you and me ; nor do you and I, who are also ghosts, so ap- pear to our neighbors and companions, because we are all similarly wrapped up in flesh and blood, and seen only as to our material coverings.* Literally and true, the ghost of a man is his soul or spiritual body; and in or- der that this may be seen, it must be looked at with ade- quate organs of sight, namely, the eyes of a spiritual body * Could anything be more miraculous than an actual, authentic ghost? The English Johnson longed all his life to see one, but could not, though he went to Cock-lane, and thence to the church- vaults, and tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor ! Did he never, with the mind’s eye, as well as the body’s, look round him into that full tide of human life he so loved — did he never so much as look intc himself? The good Doctor was a ghost, as actual and authentic as lieart could wish ; well-nigh a million of ghosts were traveling the streets by his side. What else was he, what else are we ? * ^ It is no metaphor ; it is a simple scientific fact.” — Carlyle, Sartot Resartus, Book 3d, chap. 8th. 220 SPIlUTUAl. SKJHT. like itself. AVe have sucli eyes, every one of us; but during our time-life, they are buried deep in flesh and blood, and thus it is only when specially opened by the Almiglity, for purposes of his providence, that it is possible for a ghost or spiritual body to be beheld. Much as our material eyes en- able us to sec, they prevent our seeing inconceivably more. The sight of man,” says Lord Bacon, carrieth a resem- blance with the sun, which openeth and revealeth the ter- restrial globe, but covereth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe. So doth the eye discover natural things, but darken and shut up divine.” Such an opening of the spiritual sight took place at the Transflguration, when the ghosts or spiritual bodies of Moses and Elias were seen. Such also takes place when the ghosts or spiritual bodies of the* dead are now seen, and without it, it is impossible they can be viewed. Material eyes to material substances ; spi- ritual eyes to spiritual ones. Hence it is that in accounts of spiritual appearances, both Scriptural and secular, how- ever many persons may be present, it is rarely that more than one perceives the figure. The narrative in 2 Kings vi. 14 — 17, is a remarkable instance: — ^^And Elisha prayed and said. Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw” — what previously was visible only to the prophet. So in Daniel x. 7 : — ^^And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, for the men that were with me saw not the vision.” Tasso in- troduces the vision of Michael and his warrior angels to Godfrey only. Shakspere represents the spirit of Banquo as unseen by any one at the supper table except Macbeth. The popular or vulgar notion, that before a spirit can be seen it must assume our material nature, so far, at least, as to reflect the light of this world, is exactly the reverse of the truth ; which is that the change must be made in our- selves, i. e., l)y o])ening our spiritual sight. PHYSICAL THEORY OF GHOSTS. 221 136. Ghosts, therefore, so far from being mere phantoms or apparitions, the terrifying illusions of a heated imagina- tion, are far more real than our bodies of flesh and blood. They endure forever, whereas the latter are but temporary consolidations of a little atmosphere, with a few pounds of phosphate of lime. The invisible world is populated by them just as the visible one is occupied by material things; and as that world is all round about us, so are they too closely present. Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth. Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. They have their similitude in those glorified and imperish- able languages which we are accustomed to account and speak of as dead.’’ True, they have ceased to be alive in the vulgar sense, or as spoken languages ; yet are they living and immortal, to man’s intelligence; and one of our greatest privileges is to be sensible of their presence and their influ- ence on us. Would men but ascend to this high, and true, and most sacred understanding of the inhabitants of the unseen world, there would be no more fear of ghosts, nor would ghost-belief lay itself open to the ridicule which now it too often deserves. They would be relieved, too, of the embarrassment which, when scepticism stands mocking, often seduces to an insincere denial. Ghost-belief, in a word, not- withstanding its bad reputation, is coincident with belief in spirits and angels, who are themselves the risen souls or spiritual bodies of mankind; and to know that there are angels, and to have so beautiful and salutary a subject of meditation, is one of the chief privileges and blessings of the Christian. Pity but it were dwelt upon more frequently. There have be^n times, we know, when men thought too much of the dead. Such is not among the faults of the pre- ^ent age.” It is quite likely that many supposed spiritual 19 222 TESTIMONY OF POETRY. appearances may be explained on strictly physical principles, as shown byDrs. Ferriar and ITibbert;* and especially in some kinds of disease it is likely that men fancy they see ghosts. But whoever is disposed to laugh at and repudiate the general j)roposition, should first read Mrs. Crow’s ‘^Night-side of Nature,” applying to its narratives the prin- ciples we have laid down.f When spiritual bodies are really allowed to mortal view, it is probably not to the diseased, but to the healthy mind; and coming under the providence of God, as they always must, they may furthermore be con- sidered as vouchsafed, like the miracles of the New Testa- ment, and all the spiritual appearances therein recorded, not to the immoral or the unbeliever, “because of their un- belief,” but only to those who are prepared to receive and appreciate intelligently. 137. Poetry witnesses that “there is a spiritual body.” Poetry is not, as some deem it, mere “privileged lying;” neither is it, in its essential nature, the simple embodiment of elegant but illogical fancies. The tales which the poet tells, as wilful and deliberate, may be, and doubtless are for the most part, fables. But the sayings and phraseology in which those tales are told, flowing half-unconsciously from the poet’s heart, and altogether beside the mere Art of poetry, take place with the eternal verities of the universe. As regards scientific matters, and the minutise of Natural His- * An Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions, by John Ferriar, M. D. London, 1813. Sketches of tlie Philosophy of Apparitions, or an Attempt to trace such illusions to their physical causes, by Samuel Hibbert, M. 1 ). Edinburgli, 1824. i* See also a Iteview of Mrs. Crowe’s work in Ainsworth’s Maga- zine for February, 1848, wlierein the claims of this department of knowledge are mildly and intelligently enforced. TESTIMONY OF POETRY. 223 tory, doubtless there are errors in poetry as well as in prose. But the truth of poetry is independent of blunders in learn- ing; no less than of the imperfect science of its era. The supposition equally common, that poets must be dreamers, because there is often much dreaminess in poetry, is, again, purely gratuitous. “Vulgarly considered deficient in the reasoning faculty, the poets are remarkable rather for hav- ing it in excess. They jump the middle terms of their syllogisms, it is true: and assume premises to which the world has not yet arrived; but Time stamps their conclusions as invincible.” Especially is the true and great poet a pro- found metaphysician ; a far profounder one, in general, than the metaphysicians by profession. “I have found more philosophic knowledge,” says Dr. Millingen, “in the pro- ductions of our poets, than in all the metaphysical disquisi- tions of the learned.” The only difference between the poet’s reasoning and that of other men, is that it is a reason- ing more from feeling than from induction. Therefore is it that to those who approximate, and thus understand him, the true and great poet is not only a musical singer and a painter of beautiful pictures, but a speaker of Wisdom and Truth. To such, his utterances commend themselves as an apocalypse of human nature. Take, for instance, the lines in Twelfth Night, where Viola asks Sebastian if he is “a spirit :” — “A spirit I am indeed. But am in that dimension grossly clad, Which from the womb I did participate.’’ Here, whatever may be attributed to the poet’s imagination, we have at least the calm conclusion of the philosopher, for the character of Sebastian is one which fully justifies the belief that of two possible answers Shakspere would assign to him the one which he himself considered the more sensi- 224 TESTIMONY OF POETRY. ble.* Coleridge, Wordsworth, Bailey, (in “Festus,”) all our best English poets, unite in teaching the same truth to the understiyiding that can rise to it. Shelley has an ot quisite passage : — ^‘Sudden arose lantlie’s soul ! It stood All beautiful in naked purity. The perfect semblance of its bodily frame, Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace. Each stain of earthliness Had passed away ; it re-assumed Its native dignity, and stood Immortal amid ruin.” How finely the self-disengagement of the soul at death, in the form of the body it leaves behind, is spoken of by the ancient poets, the scholar is well aware. When, for example, in the 11th ^neid, Camilla is described as extricating her- self from her corpse, after the spear of Aruns has brought her exploits to an end: — Turn frigida toto Paulatim exsolvit se corpore; lentaque colla, Et captum letlio posuit caput, &c. Then of vital heat bereft, she disengages herself from the whole body by degrees, and reclines her drooping neck and head, capti- vated by death.” It is not simply her life, or her “princijile of volition,” that goes, but se, herself. The souls of the dead, as ferried by Charon across the Styx, Virgil elsewhere designates corpora, ‘M)odies.” * See an Essay on the Ghost-belief of Shakspere, by Alfred Kofle,” (Hope, London, 1851,) in which admirable performance, says one of liis reviewers, ‘^we have the first beginning of a study of Sbakspere according to facts and nature.” TESTIMONY OF LANGUAGE. 225 138. The facts before us are borne out also by Language, which is a form of Poetry. ‘^It is good,” says an able writer, to look to the ordinary language of mankind, not only for the attestation of natural truths, but for their sug- gestions; because common sense transfers itself naturally into language; and common sense, in every age, is the ground of the truths which can possibly be revealed. If we set our ideas before the glass of language, they receive, to say the least, a cordial welcome.” By language we do not mean the mere art of speaking and writing according to some specific, arbitrary mode, which though intelligible in one country, is unintelligible in another. We mean that beautiful and inevitable flowering forth in speech of the inner living intellect of man, which, older and more excel- lent than all prosody and spelling, is an integral work of nature; and which, were it possible for the accidental forms which it may hold at any given epoch, as English and French, Latin and Greek, to be suddenly and totally abolished, would in itself be unaffected, and speedily incar- nate afresh, unchanged save in the extrinsic circumstances of costume. Looking into Language, we find accordingly, that whatever is vitally and essentially human, whatever distinguishes man from the brutes, it attributes, in all ages and countries, to ‘‘the soul” or “the spirit.” It recognises the latter, not as a mere abstract principle, which is impotent, but as a living, active, substantial entity, such as alone can effect the deeds ascribed to it. It is “ the spirit” that moves, prompts, withholds, and inclines us; that is grieved and troubled; that is elated and depressed. David exclaims, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?” We speak also of the rejoicing, triumphing, and despondency of the spirit; of having no spirit for a thing, and of being dispirited. Also of a poor 8j)irit, a mean spirit, and a great spirit; a good soul, a kind K 226 FIGURES OF SPEECH. soul, and a willing soul. Every one of these affections or qualities, as they arc ordinarily termed, is a disposition for the time being, of the true, immortal, sj^iritual man, who, underlying the material body, is the real thinker and the real emotionist. Call the expressions ‘‘figures of speech’' if you will. But take care first to understand what are figures of speech, in their proper, essential nature; whence they arise; and why they are the same with all people, in all parts of the globe, independent of any instruction or comj)act. Men who seek to escape from a truth which presses inconveniently by beginning to talk about “figures of speech,” only betray their ignorance of the first principles of language. Figures of speech, rightly so called, are the profoundest texts philosophy can start from. CHAPTER XIII. S O UJO—Sl^Iltl T—GSOST. 139. Not a little of the confusion prevailing in the popu- lar mind with regard to the Soul, may unquestionably be referred to the fact of our having three distinct words for it, a proof at the same time of the inestimable value of an en- larged and accurate appreciation of the nature of Language in the determination and establishment of Truth, and of the evils that arise from inattention to it. Ordinarily, the ‘‘soul’’ of man, his “spirit,” and his “ghost,” are imagined to be three separate and distinct things. Directly we look to the inherent meaning of the several words, we find them, however, synonymous and convertible, and originally of a single signification and a single application. The soul of man is his spirit, and his spirit is his ghost; neither word meaning more or less than the Spiritual body. Undoubt- edly a conventional distinction has been made between the three terms, and a very proper and useful one it is, but un- fortunately it is not observed. “ Soul ” is well applied to the spiritual body during our residence in the flesh: “spirit,” by metonymy, to that deep, interior, intellectual and emotional consciousness which is evidence to us of our spiritual life: “ghost” to the spiritual body when, casting off its material vesture, it becomes an inhabitant exclusively of the spiritual world, and if pure, an angel. Were they always thus limited and applied, the words would carry meaning. As matters stand, they carry no7ie, since no two writers use 227 22b NATURAL FOUNDATION OF LANOUAGE. tlieni alike. That psychologists should have been content to go on discussing about the soul, year after year, and yet have allowed the sense of their text-word to go irreclaiinably adrift, certainly is no credit to them; nor is it surprising that they have made so little way. Till a man is prepared to state the exact significance which he attaches to his terms, and till he has learned to be consistent in the use of them, it is better both for himself and for the world that he should fling away his pen. 140. Together with the equivalent words in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, and other languages, soul, spirit, and ghost literally denote Air or Breath. The metaphor is emi- nently just and beautiful, seeing that the air is the physical image and representative of Life; and that it is in the invi- sible, spiritual part of man that Life is supremely throned. It is a truth alike of Scripture, philosophy, physiology, and poetry, that the Breath is the representative of Life. It stands in the first place as symbol of the organic life; secondly, and in superior degree, as symbol of the spiritual life. What language, by its intuitional usages, broadly asserts, the expositors of truth ratify and substantiate. Language indeed, or Philology, in its highest sense, is only another name for Philosophy. We have seen above how intimately the air is connected with organic life; that Respi- ration is the beginning, and ceasing to breathe, the end. Because of this connection, all the primitive names applied to organic life were simply transfers of the current appella- tions of the wind; subsequently, by virtue of the corres- pondence of the organic with the spiritual, the same names were extended upwards to the soul. Every one of these names denotes accordingly, in addition to air or wind, the life of the body, and is tlius possessed not merely of a two- fold, l)ut of a tri[)le meaning. There is nothing singular in tliis. It exemplifies a general princi])le. No word either MEANING OF THE WORD SOUL 229 does or can denote a spiritual thing without at the same time denoting both a physiological or organic, and a phy- sical or inorganic thing. The reason is, that language rests universally upon objective Nature, and that objective Na- ture, in turn, is universally representative of spiritual things, proximately in its organic forms, remotely in its inorganic ones. The spiritual universally carries with it the physio- logical, and the physiological the physical, just as the capital of a column involves the shaft, and the shaft the pedestal. The physical and physiological meanings of words denoting spiritual things may be obsolete, but they are there, nevertheless, palpable and instructive to the philosophic eye, to which nothing that has ever had a meaning for mankind, ever absolutely dies. 141. To place these great principles in the clear light sup- plied by facts, let us briefly examine the etymologies of the several words. If it serve only to give an agreeable variety to the general subject, the time will not be spent in vain. ‘‘Soul,” as the most celebrated and familiar, naturally comes first. Soul, (Anglo-Saxon sawle, German seele,) is coinci- dent with the Latin /lafitus, breath, derived from /ia^are, to breathe, a root familiar in the words exhale, mliale, and itself only an enlarged form, (like (jaoc, salus,) of the earlier word aeoj or dco, a beautiful onomatopceia, expressive in its long, open vowels, of the very act which it designates. Per- mutation of initial sounds, as in halitus and soul, a sibilant taking the place of an aspirate, a dental of a labial, &c., is one of the most common phenomena of spoken language. Colloquially, and in miscellaneous literature, soul is not now used in the sense of “ breath but in the authorized version of the Scriptures, or the English language of 1611, it often has this meaning. In 1 Kings xvii., for instance, “There was no breath left in him; and the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child 20 230 MEANING OF THE WORD SOUL. came into him again, and he revived.’’ The second or phy- siological sense is also exliibited in the Bible, but more fre- quently in secular authors, as when they term tlie life of brutes the “animal soul.” “There are,” says Mr. Blakey, “in a certain sense, two souls in man. We give the name, first, to that physical life and organic power which we pos- sess in common with tlic animal and vegetable creation; secondly, to the principle of sensibility and tliouglit, the soul which thinks, feels, reasons, and judges, and exists only in man.” (Vol. 1, p. 61.) In the original, physical sense of the word soul, all creatures whatever have souls, inasmuch as they live by inhalation or breathing; so that to be “a living soul” is nothing peculiar to man, if we judge by the words alone, without exploring their philosophy. Many people, naturally ambitious, and unwiUing to observe so many agreements as there are between themselves and the lower forms of creation, make it a matter of pride that our first parents were formed, as they suppose, in a manner dif- ferent from the parents of other animals. “God,” they remind us, “breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul,^’ a circumstance not mentioned of the progenitors of any other species of creature. But neither is it mentioned of the first species of any other crea- ture that they were created “male and female.” This, how- ever, can well afford to be let pass, when compared with the fact that the distinction apparently established by the words “living soul,” presents itself only in the translation. There is no such distinction in the Hebrew, wliich in this instance applies identically the same terms to man and to brute. Each was made n^n {nej)hesh chmjaJi,) “a living soul;” only our translators have rendered the references to the brute creation (Gen. i. 21, 24,) living creature ” Either word might legitimately be substituted for the other. It is amusing that while many have entrenched themselves in MEANING OF THE AVORD GHOST. 231 this phrase of ‘living soul/’ and found in it man’s inalien- able characteristic, the exactly opposite conclusion has been arrived at by some of those whose curiosity had led them to the original. Both brutes and man being called “living creatures,” or “ living souls,” some have inferred that brutes are as immortal as man; others that man is mortal as brutes. Man differs from the brutes not in respect of his being a “living soul,” which is simply to be a “breather,” such as they are; but in respect of his being so constituted as to be recipient of the knowledge of God, and of power to love him. Shakspere accredits the Avord soul with its full, final meaning, namely, the spiritual body when set free from flesh and blood: — Where souls do couch on flowers, we’ll hand in hand, And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze. 142. Ghost, (Anglo-Saxon gast, German geist,') shoAVS its physical meaning in the cognate Avord “ gust,” as “ a gust of Avind ;” also in the term used to designate the aeriform sub- stance called “ gas.” In Old German, the grand-parent of English, geisten signified to bloAV. In a German Bible of the year 1483, “ the breath of life” is translated “ der geist des lebens.” To “ give up the ghost” is literally, to sur- render the breath ; the “ Holy Ghost” is literally the breath of the Lord, as implied in his OAvn Avords, when “ He breathed on his disciples, and said. Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” Where the English version of the Scriptures has “ghost” and “spirit,” the Anglo-Saxon reads Wiclif, in his New Testament, spells “the holi goost^ The “ gist” of a subject, like the “spirit” of a book, or the animm of an action, signifies its soul or inmost principle. In Ger- man, geist continues to be used in many of the meanings which, with ourselv^*? q.re conveyed by “ spirit.” Thus — 232 SPIRIT. Was der Geist versprecht leistet die Natnr. — Schiller. ^^Wliat the Spirit promises, Nature performs.’^ 143. Spirit, (Latin spiritiis,) takes us to the very origin of words, resting on the beautiful lisp or whisper with which the breezes quiver the leaves. All words, we' may observe, are expansions of a few hundred primitive onomatopoeias, more or less obviously preserved in them, and which, like the sp in spirit, constitute their ultimate ‘‘ roots.” Fresh gales and gentle airs Whisper’d it to the woods . — Paradise Lost. And there is heard the ever-moving air Whisp’ring from tree to tree. — Shelley. In solitudes Her voice came to me through the whisp’ring woods. — Ib. Virgil shows the etymology at a glance, for who that knows aught of the sweet music of nature does not perceive that the bare idea of blowing is the least part of his aurcis spi- rantes f The Greek form of the word, is one of the most beautiful onomatopoeias extant in any language, sings Theocritus — *^A6v Ti rd ipidvpi(Tfxa Kai a -rrirvgP Sweet is the whisper of the wind among the fir-trees Whoever wrote that little gem of the Orphica, the hymn to the Zephyrs, avpai TTOVToytveXg ZecpvptriSegf rjcpo^oXTOiy tldvTTPOOlf IplOvpalf the introduction of this one word is enough to announce him Poet. Now-a-days a man can adopt epithets from a thousand j)redeccssors ; the Greek had only nature, and his own aj)t, living, luxuriant heart. Virgil not only illustrates the origin of the word spirit, but its several applications. SPIRIT AND ITS COGNATE TERM. 233 Til us, as given to the breath, in that charming description where Iris, mingling with the exiled Trojan ladies as they walk mourning by the sea, though she has laid aside her goddess’ vestments, and personates a decrepid old woman, is still unable to conceal herself : Non Beroe vobis, non hsec Bhoeteia, matres Est Dorycli conjux : divini signa decoris, Ardentesque notate oculos : qiii spiritus illi, Qui vultus, vocisve sonus, vel gressus eunti. “ Matrons, this is not Beroe who stands before you, not the wife of Doryclus. Mark here the characters of divine beauty ! See how bright her eyes ! What fragrance in her breath ! What majesty in her looks ! Or mark the music of her voice, and the graceful mien with which she moves It denotes Life where JEneas is heard protesting fidelity to the too-confiding, ill-requited Dido : Nec me meminisse pigebit Elisse Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos reget artus ! Never shall I be slow to think of Dido, while I retain any recollection of myself, or life to actuate these limbs 144. In connection with the word spirit, it is interesting to note the cognate term spiral,” seeing that it involves the same idea. Similarly derived from spiro to blow, its fundamental allusion is to the well-known phenomenon of the spiral movement of the wind. Now this peculiar move- ment, the spiral, delineates a Form, which form thus be- comes an emblem or pictorial representative of the wind, and thence of what the wind itself represents, namely. Life. All forms are representative, and their significance is the science of sciences. There are lower, higher, and highest forms. Forms made up of straight lines, and thus angular, with flat surfaces, as crystals, are of the lowest degree, and accord with what is inorganic, inanimate, and basal gene- 20 234 THE SPIRAL FORM. rally. Next comes tlie form of which the sphere and the circle are the type — a form derived from the extension of the primitive point in all directions, and which is essentially connected with the organic and animate. Whatever in the universe exhibits a totality, is always a solid circle or sphere. Portions of circles, or curves, conjoined with the straight line and angle, give that innumerable variety of profiles and configurations which we see among animals and plants. Rarely is the curve found in the inorganic department of creation. Only perhaps in the spherules of quicksilver, on the convex side of drops of water and other liquids, in bub- bles, and in some few minerals. In the degree that crystals multiply their surfaces, and thus lose their great angles and facets, they approach the spherical or organic form. The dodecahedron, for examj)le, approaches the sphere more nearly than the octohedron ; the octohedron more nearly than the cube. Highest of all is the Spiral form, which in its own highest kind, or as produced by winding a thread round a cylinder, is the circle infinitely continued. The circle returns into itself, ending where it began ; but the possible beginning and ending of a spiral the imagination cannot conceive. The spiral, therefore, rather than the circle, is the true symbol of eternity. The spiral form is identified with no department of creation in particular, because an emblem of the omnipresent principle which equally sustains all. It shows itself most remarkably in the Vegetable kingdom, where it is the law of the arrange- ment of the leaves, and thus of the buds and flowers. Almost all the wonderful diversities in the contour of plants come of their sj)irals of development being more or less stretched or contracted. Thus, alternate leaves become o])positc by a slight contraction ; opposite ones become ver- ticillate })y a greater. Flowers universally are produced by the contraction of the spiral into a series of concentiic ANIMA AND ANIMUS. 235 rings, the highest part of the spiral becoming the centre, and its lowest part the circumference. Certain fruits, as fir- cones, show the spiral in the most beautiful manner. In- ternally, plants abound with a delicate kind of veins known as “ spiral vessels.” Stems, cgain, which are too slender to stand upright, lift themselves into the air by twining spirally round a stronger neighbor. As respects the animal king- dom, the spiral is a frequent and beautiful feature in uni- valve shells ; where also, as in plants, much of the wonderful variety comes of the spiral being more or less contracted. In the lovely genera Cerithium, Pleurostoma, Fusus, Tur- ritella, &c., one extreme is shown; in Cyprsea, Conus, Strombus, &c., the other. The beautiful spiral by which the Vorticell^e extend and retract themselves gives to the movements of these little creatures an elegance and spright- liness unsurpassed. In human organization the sj^iral is less observable, except that it adorns the head with curls and ringlets. Human life, on the other hand, is one un- broken, endless spiral, and here we realize the greatness and amplitude of the significance of the spiral Form. Life winds its little circles, hour by hour, day by day, year by year, faithfully concluding each before another is begun, but never failing to commence afresh where it left off, and so goes on everlastingly, ring rising upon ring, every circle covering and reiterating its predecessors, on a higher level, nearer and nearer to the heavens. The material body drops away, like dead leaves, but Life goes on, in beautiful and ceaseless aspiration. Nowhere in nature is there a more charming emblem of Life than the common scarlet or twining bean of our gardens, while rising to its maturity. 145. Animus, the usual Latin word for the soul, short- ened in French into time, is the same word as anima, the wind, in Greek whence the pretty name anemone, or wind-flower The subordinate senses are preserved, like 236 PSYCHE. those of spiritus, in the Latin authors. Thus, ‘‘ aurarumque leves animce/^ “the light breezes of the Avinds (Lucretius V. 237.) “Ah niiserain Lurydicen, ammd fugiente, vocabat,’’ “Ah, unfortunate Eurydice, he cries with his fast-fleeting breath.’’ (Georgic iv. 526.) The earlier etymological his- tory is found in the Sanscrit language, in which breath is called anas and miilaSj the root being an. Tliough essen- tially the same word, a useful practical distinction is made in Latin between the two forms anima and animws; the for- mer being restricted, in its figurative ascent, to the organic life, whence it is usually translated “ life,” “ vital principle,” or “ animal soul while to the latter is allowed the higher meaning of spiritual life, whence it is generally translated “ rational soul — Mundi Principio indulsit communis conditor illis Tantum animas, nobis animum quoque, &c. Juvenalj Sat. xv. 147. “ In the beginning of the world, the Creator vouchsafed to brutes only the principle of vitality ; to us he gave souls also, that an in- stinct of affection, reciprocally felt, might urge us to seek, and to give, assistance.” 146. the Greek word generally understood to mean “ soul,” comes from (poy^co to blow, and would seem to be of kindred onomatopoetic origin with spiritus. K at pot dvaipu^eco^.^ “ the times of refreshing,” (Acts hi. 19) is lite- rally “ the times of the blowing of the cool wind.” There is a good deal of misconception as to this famous word. What it ordinarily intends in Greek literature, both sacred and secular, is not the spiritual, immortal part of man, biit his animal or time-life. “ Take no thought for your life” — • fiTj fLEptpvdrE r'^c with the context, well illus- trates its ordinary New Testament significance. In Lev. xvi. 3, fisJics are (tailed Conformably with ihe^e PNEIIMA. 237 usages, “ tlie natural body,’’ i. e., the material body, endowed with organic, animal life only, and belonging exclusively to the temporal world, is termed by St. Paul, ao)ixa (pu'^txbv^ while the spiritual, immortal body be calls OMfia nveufiarc- xov. Undoubtedly, ^^soul” in its high, metaphysical and theological senses, is occasionally intended by ; but its most useful signification is simply the life which animates the temporary, material body. Many of the ancients attri- buted to the latter all that is psychological as well as physi- ological in our nature. With these, accordingly, in- cludes both ‘‘life” and “mind,” or anima and animus, and is their collective appellation.* 147. What is generally intended in to-day’s English by “ soul,” e., the immortal, thinking part of man, is in Greek mostly called 7iveiJ[xa. Translators render it “spirit.” The primary or physical sense is illustrated by St. John — “the wind bloweth where it listeth and the secondary or physi- ological one by St. Matthew — “ Jesus yielded up the ghost, (xxvii. 50,) nveufia being the Greek word in both cases. When in the New Testament (poy^rj and Tzvvjfxa occur in juxtaposition, the sense is tantamount to the colloquial phrase “ life and soul.” But they are translated soul and spirit,” as in Heb. iv. 12, fostering the popular mistake that the soul (theologically so called) and the spirit are distinct things. Nothing can exceed the confusion into which even intelligent people are often unconsciously drawn, through the want of a clear understanding of the great truth, so sub- lime in its simplicity, “ that there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body,” — not there will he, but there is, and that this spiritual body is the ever-living soul or spirit, if any doubt the existence of such confusion, let them read * On Homer’s use of the word, see a learned paper from the Ger- man of Voelcker, in the Classical Museum for 1845. 238 SPIRIT, SOU]., AND BODY. Wesley’s 41st hymn — “And am I born to die?” and see if they can shut the book with the least glimmering of com- prehension of what it means. “ Spirit, soul, and body,” as in 1 Thess. v. 23, is a Scriptural pcri})hrase for the whole man, as he exists during his time-life; “spirit” denoting the life of the intellect and affections, or of the internal man ; “ soul” the life of the body, as exercised in the appetites and animal instincts ; “ body” the sacred instrument with which those lives are enabled to be played forth into the world. Soul and body, or and awim^ have reference to this world only ; spirit, or 7rv£?)/i«, belongs also to the world to come. Consentaneously with this, man is Scripturally called “ flesh” when his mortality is the subject of discourse ; “soul” when his animal propensities are chiefly alluded to; “spirit” when his intellectual or emotional nature or the in- ternal man, is the theme. The ghosts, or disengaged spirit- ual bodies of the dead, are called TTveu/mza, or “spirits,” by the inspired writers, on a principle already set forth. 148. The Hebrew words corresponding with soul, &c., of- fer precisely similar histories, nn (ruahh) denotes the wind in Gen. viii. 1 ; breath, frequently; temporal life, in the his- tory of Samson — “when he had drank, his spirit came again ;” spiritual life, and life in the general sense, or the all-sustaining energy of the Creator, also very often. (nephesh) and {neshamali) are equivalents in every way. A minute exposition of the application of these words, constitutes, along with relevant matter, an invalu- able little book by the Rev. George Bush, Professor of He- brew at New York — “ Soul, or an Inquiry into Scriptural Psychology.” New York, 1845. 149. Comparing these various facts, the conclusion w<' come to is, tliat while on the one liand, the soul is no mere apj)endage to human nature, shapeless and incomprehensi- ble, or at best, “ life ;” on the other hand, that wondrous THE BODY THE APPENDAGE TO THE SOUL. 289 spiritual body in which we find it, is the veritable, essential Man — 12086 — “ the man in the man.” Kightly regarded, it is not the soul that is the appendage, but the body. As a mate- rial body, it is admirable and incomparable ; but placed be- side that which alone gives dignity and glory to the idea of man, it confesses itself no more than a piece of mechanism, spread over him for awhile, in order that during his reten- tion of it, he may act on the material world and its inhabit- ants, and fashion his intellect and moral character. It is the strong right arm with which he is impowered to enforce his arbitrations. Man is created for heaven, not for earth ; therefore he is fundamentally a spiritual, and only provi- sionally a material being. The etdo(^ of his nature is the spiritual body; the material is only its eUdcoXov.^ The eld(oXov is first to mortal eyes and understanding ; but the spiritual el'do(; is the first to fact and truth ; just as the ut- tered word is the first to the listener, but the invisible, underlying thought the first to the speaker. Truly and beautifully has man been called a ‘‘word” of the Creator. The spiritual body is the seat of all thought, all emotion, all volition ; excepting, of course, such purely animal voli- tion as belongs to the organic life, and is participated in by the brutes. The material body does no more than fulfill the instincts of its own proper organic or brute life, save when the spiritual body gives forth a mandate. Intimately com- bined with its envelope till the latter wears out, or falls sick, and dies, the spiritual body then renounces all connec- tion with it ; throws it back into its native dust, as * The difference between fWoj and eUw\ov is not generally discri- minated by the lexicons as it deserves ; — eUos denotes the true, es- sential form of a thing; ct^wXoj/, on the contrary, the apparent, painted, or external : cikoXov is the diminutive of cWo? not in reference to extent or bulk, but in respect of perfection and essence. 210 SLEEP OF THE SOUL. the snake casts his enamelPd skin : or as The grasshoppers of the summer lay down their worn-out dresses,* and becomes conscious of the Better Land. Its own life goes on as before. At least there is not the sliglitest reason to suppose, either on Scriptural or philosophical grounds, that its vital activity is for one instant suspended. Tlie notion that the soul falls into a kind of sleep or lethargy, on the death of the body, though a very common one, is indeed utterly at variance both with the deductions of philosopliy and the intimations of Holy Writ, which plainly informs us that the spirit rises immediately after death, as in ihe para- ble of Lazarus and the rich man, and in the address of our Saviour to the crucified thief, This dmj shaft thou be with me in Paradise;’’ a prophecy, moreover, impossible on any other understanding than that of a spiritual body. Just what the soul is, when it shakes off the material envelope, it continues to he, retaining all its loves, desires, and inclina- tions, be they good or evil, pure or impure; and upon these it goes on expending its life, the only difference being in the immediate results to the indis idual, seeing that the sphere wherein those loves, &c. are now played forth, is absolutely spiritual, and governed by laws and conditions of its own. Of the origin of the notion of the soul’s sinking into a state of torpor after death, there can be no doubt. Like most other falsities in psychology, and like many in theology, it comes of false physiology, and is directly traceable to the materialist’s figment that life is a function of organization, the corollary of which is, that as there is no visible organi- * ut olim Cum veteres ponunt tmiicas sestate cicadae. Lucketius, Lib. iv. 55-56. MAN A DENIZEN OF TWO WORLDS. 241 zation but that of matter, therefore matter is essential to man’s existence ; and thus, that when denuded of it at death, his soul collapses into an insensate, motionless, incompetent nothing, so to remain till reclothed with flesh and blood. But this, as we have seen, is altogether fallacious. Man is a thinking, feeling, immortal creature, not by virtue of his .material body, but by virtue of his spiritual body. From the first moment of his existence, he is an inhabitant both of the material and of the spiritual world. He dwells con- sciously in the one, unconsciously in the other; and the change induced on him by death ” is simply that this state of matters is reversed. That is, he then dwells consciously in the spiritual world, but is no longer a percipient of the material one. Why, during his first state, he sees and knows nothing, consciously, of the spiritual world, is that he is blindfolded by the muddy vesture of decay.” Why he is afterwards unconscious of the material world, is that in order to realize it, he must possess an appropriate material organism. We live in vhe spiritual world, all of us, as per- sons blind from birth live in the present material one, i, e., in it, but not seeing it; and the death of the material body (which involves the permanent opening of the spiritual sight) is like the couching of the eyes of such persons by an oculist, and enabling them to see what surrounds them. In our chapter on the Future State, this will receive its due meed of illustration. 150. That there are many and great difficulties in con- ceiving of the mystery of the spiritual body, that is, of the Soul, has already been amply conceded. He who would affect to deny them would only betray his ignorance both of himself and his subject. Embedded as we are in the material, the mind needs first to assume the doctrine, and then gradually ascend to the verification. Following a clue, and knowing what we are looking for, the evidence is found. 21 L 242 DIFFICULTIES IN KECAllI) TO THE SOUL. We act no differently, day by day, wlien we enter on the study of any new and comprehensive subject in physical or physiological science. Not that this is a new doctrine, but only an unfamiliar one. ‘^It is a venerable creed, like a dawn on the peaks of thought, reddening their snows from the light of another sun, the substance of immemorial reli- gions, the comfort of brave simplicity, though the doubt of to-day, and the abyss of terrified science.’’ It is hard, for instance, to think at first of spiritual form, because all our ordinary experience of form presses upon us the idea of ma- terial solidity. It is hard, likewise, to think how the spiritual body is circumstanced with regard to what in the material world are called Time and Space. Accustomed as we are to regard space and the spiritual as antithetical, we are at first quite indisposed to admit that a spiritual being can be bounded by space. It is true, nevertheless. Nothing but Deity can be everywhere at once. There must be portions even of the spiritual world where a given spirit is not. Therefore the spiritual body is subject to a condition at all events answering to space. Again, it is hard, nay, it is im- possible, to conceive of what may be called the procreation and birth of the spiritual body, and in what mode and respect these are concurrent with the procreation and birth of the material body. We can satisfy ourselves of nothing more than that God creates the soul when needed, and not before.* The organization of the spiritual body is equally * For opinions on the subject, see Dickinson^s Physica Vetus et Vera, cap. II ; Blakey’s History of the Philosophy of the Mind, vol. 1, p. 197; and Clowes’ Fourth Letter on the Human Soul. The famous doctrine of the ^‘pre-existence” of the soul, it is beside our present purpose to discuss. See, for an enthusiastic defence of it, Lux Orierhtalis, or an Enquiry into the opinions of the Eastern Sages, concerning the pre-existence of the Soul.” 12mo., 1662. DIFFICULTIES ARE NO OBJECTION. 243 beyond the range of man’s present powers. There can be little doubt, however, that instead of a simple homogeneity, as commonly supposed, the soul is eminently composite. ‘‘ There are some things in Paul’s description of the spiritual body,” says Dr. Hitchcock, which make it quite probable that its organization will be” (or rather is) ‘^much more exquisite than anything in existence on earth. He repre- sents the spiritual body as far transcending the material body both in glory and power; and since the latter is ‘fear- fully and wonderfully made,’ nothing but the most exquisite organization can give the spiritual body such a superiority over the natural.” (Religion of Geology, Lect. xiv.) Then there is the nature of the sex of the spiritual body, which is as immortal as itself, albeit that in heaven “there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.” Sex, in its true idea, belongs to the soul, not to the body, in which it is only representatively and temporally present. This fine subject the reader may see treated with admirable delicacy and philosophy in Haughton’s “Sex in the Future State.” 151. Because of such difficulties, and because too intensely accustomed to the material to welcome such propositions as have been set forth, some will not improbably receive them with a laugh, and tax us at least with superstition.* Good. If superstition it be to hold such views, it is a superstition far more valuable and fertilizing to the mind than all that some men esteem the truth. Putting faith before charity in all they do, and deceiving themselves by substituting nar- * It is scarcely necessary to repeat that the vulgar notion respect- ing ghosts, including “haunted houses,” “spirit-rapping,” white sheets, &c., &c., is altogether apart from the doctrine of the spiritual body. The latter is Scriptural and philosophical, whereas the for- mer is neither, but utterly contemptible, and does notv even call for the disclaimer which would asknowledge it to deserve one. 244 FACTS AND HYPOTHESES. row and exclusive notions for a compreliensive and benign belief, many men's ‘Hrutli” is nothing but traditional, barren error. We ask no one to accept uninquiringly, and should be sorry for any one who did. What a man takes upon trust," remarks Locke, ‘‘is but shreds, which however well they may look in the whole piece, make no considerable ad- dition to his stock who gathers them. So much only as we ourselves consider and comprehend of truth and reason, so much only do we possess of real and true knowledge. The floating of other men's opinions in our brains, makes us not one jot the more knowing, though they happen to be true. Like fairy money, they turn to dust when they come to be used." On the other hand, let no one too hastily reject. Disbelieve after inquiry, if you see cause to ; but never begin with disbelief. Premature condemnation is the fool's func- tion. It goes for nothing to say that the evidence of the truth of a proposition does not appear. Do you see the evidence of its falsity F Before you reject a proposition or series of propositions, for what you suppose to be their error, take care that you apprehend all their truth; or as Carlyle shrewdly advises, “ Be sure that you see, before you assume to oversee." Indeed, till the truth of a theme be appre- ciated, its error, if any, cannot be detected. Such doctrines as this of the spiritual body it is impossible to grasp on the instant. They must be thought out, from the data which Scripture supplies, and philosophy illustrates. Hypothetical though they may be, in certain points, this again is no valid olqection, since without hypothesis it is impossible to advance a single step. “Philosophy proceeds upon a system of credit; and if she never advanced beyond her tangible capital, her wealth would not be so enormous as it is."* Difficulty in flnding interpretation of anomalies and perplexities “is no * Kev. W. ThoniHon, “Outlines of the Laws of Tliouajht OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS, &C. 245 argument/’ as Baden Powell truly, observes, ‘^against the general truth of a proposition ; nor need it lead us into ex- travagant and gratuitous speculations to bring about a pre- cise explanation where the circumstances do not furnish sufficient data. Having once grasped firmly a great princi- ple, we should be satisfied to leave minor difficulties to wait their solution, assured that time will clear them up, as it has done before with others.” The fact is, all great and sacred truths, and there are none grander and more sacred than this of the spiritual body, come to us at first, ‘‘like the gods in Homer, enveloped in blinding mist.” But to him whom their descent to earth concerns, — ^to him who stands most in need of their help, and who can most gratefully ap- preciate, and best apply the privilege, “the cloud becomes luminous and fragrant, and discloses the divinity within.” The eye that in the beginning was so dim, presently feels itself sparkle and dilate, and what the intellect fails to read, the quick heart interprets. As when the moon hath comforted the night. And set the world in silver of her light. 152. It may be interesting to conclude the argument that the soul is a spiritual body with a few citations of authors by whom the doctrine has been treated or approved. Among the Fathers there does not appear to have been one who re- garded the soul as most modern authors do. They seem rather to have been unanimous as to its corporeity, though on the nature of this corj^oreity they widely difiTered. Ter- tullian argues not only that the soul is a body, and that it holds the human form, but that God himself is a body, for that what is bodiless is nothing."*" Augustin, though he finds * De, Anima, near the beginning, Opera, p. 307 ; and Adverms^ Praxeam, ib. p. 637. (Ed. Paris, 1641.) 21 246 OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS, <&C. fault with Tertullian, from the mistaken notion that his views involve materialism, by no means rejects them.* Theodotus is very explicit; yju q adyfia x. t. ‘Hhe soul also is a body, for the apostle says. It is sown;’’ &c.f Methodius, also, in his treatise on the resurrection; ‘'The souls,” says he, “created by the Ci cator and Father of all, are (Tcd/mra voepd^ intellectual bodies, and adorned as they are, with members which are perceived by reason, . . . . are said to have a tongue, finger, and other parts, as in the case of Lazarus and the rich man.J Maca- rius, the celebrated homilist, observes — “Each one, according to his nature, is a body, whether angel or soul. For al- though these bodies are attenuate, nevertheless they are in substance, character, and figure, according to the respective subtleties of their nature, subtle bodies; in like manner as the body we now possess in one that is dense.”§ Suicer, in his great theological cyclopaedia, the Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus, article may be consulted for more of the same kind. Passing on to later times, we find the doc- trine upheld by Lord Bacon : — “ And this spirit whereof we speak,” says he, “is not from virtue, or energy, or act, or a trifle, but plainly a body, rare and invisible, notwithstanding circumscribed by place, quantitative, real.”l| Andrew Bax- * See the vindication of Tertullian in Dr. Edward Burton’s “Bampton Lectures,” Appendix, note 59, 1829. f Clemens Alex. Opera, p. 791. (Ed. Paris, 1629.) X Tlie curious student will find this treatise well worth attention, or at least tlie cxccrpta given in that inestimable treasure-house of Elegant lOxtracts, the Myriobihlion of Pliotious, pp. 907-932. (Ed. Kouen, 1653.) 2 Homily iv. Works, p. 21. (Ikl. Paris, 1722.) II History of Life and Death. Works. Vol. xiv., p. 410. MODERN AUTHORS AND THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 247 ter, in his Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul, confesses that a difference between the soul after the death of the material body, and a spiritual body, is a difference he cannot comprehend. Sennertus adopts the doctrine in his Epitomes Physicce."^ Cudworth, likewise, though with some diffident reservations, in the True Intellectual System: — ‘‘Even here, in this life, our body is, as it were, twofold, in- terior and exterior; we having, besides the grossly tangible bulk of our outward body, another interior, spiritual body, . . . . which latter is not put into the grave with the other.” (Page 806.) The introductory chapter of one of the first metaphysical works in the English language, But- ler’s Analogy of Religion, though it does not speak of the doctrine by name, in argument fully acknowledges it. From recent writers may be selected as follows: — Monck Mason, in his Creation by the Immediate Agency of God, written in reply to the Vestiges, after describing the inces- sant atomic change of the material . body, observes in reference to the preservation of its identity. — “There must be a permanent representative within, which is not material, — which is the Soul.” Dr. Moore, in the Preface to his work on the Power of the Soul over the Body, defines the former as “ a spiritual being, resident in the body.” “ The being,” he continues, “that now feels, thinks, acts, and agi- tates the vital frame-work, will forever be subjected to affec- tions and emotions, wherever it may dwell.” Geoffrey de St. Hilaire expresses similar opinions in a communication to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, published in their Reports for 1837. Morell, in his Elements of Psychology, is disposed to call the mind “a spiritual organism.” “The real man consists in the abiding power which the body con- tains to assimilate everything to a given form and idea.” * Lib. viii., cap. 1. Opera, vol. ii., p. 81. 248 MODERN AUTHORS ON THE REAL MAN. Tlie doctrine is set forth in all its excellence and plenitude in J. J. Garth Wilkinson’s masterly work, “The Human Body, and its connection with Man;” also in the “Anastasis” of Professor Bush, and in the Ilev. E. D. Bendell’s truly excellent “Treatise on the Peculiarities of the Bible.” CHAPTER XIV. TBUE inEA OF YOUTH AND AGE, 153. The phenomena of the spiritual expression of life are the operations of the Intellect and Affections, or what phrenologists term the Intellectual and the Affective facul- ties. Everything which belongs to man as a reasoning and emotional being, is included in these two great divisions, and the language of nature calls them, in its most ancient as well as in its most modern tongues, the Head and the Heart. The distinction is the Scriptural jone, though philosophy is only beginning to recognize it.* It is the Intellect and Affections, accordingly, which essentially express human life ; for the life of the body is but the life of an animal, and little more than that of a tree. All things eat, and drink, and sleep, and propagate, but only man can think * “ Metaphysicians,’’ says Cory, have at length approximated to a truth which in the metaphysics of Christianity, is laid down with as much perspicuity and decision as the immortality of the soul, or any other of those points which have been so continually agitated among philosophers, modern as well as ancient. The distinction between the Intellect and the Emotions or Afiections, to which, simple as it may appear, such laborious approaches have been made, through the thorny paths of metaphysics, is clearly drawn in the Scriptures, and the respective seats of them assigned, figuratively, but most naturally, to the Head and Heart, and to the heart the Scriptures most constantly appeal .” — Metaphysical Inquiries^ p. 200. (18^8.) L 249 250 WORK A LIVING HYMN OF PRAISE. and love. Every tiling which brings genuine delight and dignity to human existence — everything implied in hope and faith, in wisdom and affection, comes of this heavenly boon. Introducing man firstly to the loveliness of the material creation, which to the brute is invisible ; afterwards it intro- duces him to the immortal splendors of the spiritual crea- tion, and to the company of the angels. The veritable golden chain let do^Yn from heaven, which old Homer saw dimly, the life of the Intellect and Affections is that by which man is allowed to become sensible how near and enduring is his relation to his Creator, for it is by these alone he is approachable. Essentially expressing human life, the acquirements of these two great spiritual faculties, or Ideas and Emotions, are man’s only genuine Property. We have nothing else that we can either call or make abso- lutely our own ; we need nothing besides, for these comprise all things worth possession. They are the cup of ambrosia presented to immortalized Psyche. 154. With such a destiny attached to it, how inestimable a prerogative is human life ! And what ingratitude to mis- use it. Life may be m^sused without being aZ^used. It is misused if it be not so employed as to be enjoyed, L e., by making the most of, its opportunities; in other words, devoting it to honorable deeds, affectional as well as intel- lectual. The more strenuously we enact such deeds, the more genuine, because practical, is our acknowledgment of the Divine goodness in bestowing life, and the keener be- comes our aptitude for sucking the honey of existence. Work or activity, of whatever kind it be, uprightly and earnestly pursued, is a living hymn of praise. It is truest o})edience also, for it is God’s great law that whatever powers and aptitudes he lias given us, shall be honorably and zealously employed. The energy of life, when fairly brought out, is immense; immense beyond what any one LIFE INTENDED TO BE HAPPY. 251 who has not tried it can imagine. Too often neglected, and allowed to lapse into weakness ; trained and exercised, it will quicken into grandeur. It is better to wear out than to rust out, says a homely proverb, with more meaning than people commonly suppose. Eiist consumes faster than use. To ‘^wear out’’ implies life and its pleasures; to “rust,” the stagnation of death. Life, rightly realized, is embosomed in light and beauty. The world is not necessarily a “vale of tears.” God never intended it to be so to any one. All his arrangements are with an opposite design, and to be ful- filled, only need man’s response and cooperation. True, in his all- wise providence, he sends troubles upon men, and grievous ones ; but they are never so great as those they bring upon themselves, and willingly suffer. What shall be our experience of life rests mainly with ourselves. The world may render us unfortunate, but it cannot make us miserable ; if we are so, the fault lies in our own bosoms. It is not only the great who order their own circumstances. On the wide, wild sea of human life, as on that where go the ships, the winds and the waves are always on the side of the clever sailor. Though one breast prove unfaithful, there are plenty of others that do not. It is still our OAvn to rejoice in the belief of the good and beautiful, and to weave out of this belief a perennial happiness. If we take precautions to form and preserve a sound estimate of what is past, the joyful experience and the sorrowful alike, we rarely have cause for regret, and always abundance for hope and thankfulness; for that which spoils life is seldom so much the occurrence of certain events, as the perverted recol- lection of them, and of this, happy events no less than un- happy ones may be the subject. Even if a man make no effort of himself — if he be so neglectful as not to realize the brilliant opportunities permitted to him, so fully as he may, still is life crowded with pleasures. When there is shadow, 252 Til he idea of longevity. it is because there is sunshine not far off. Its weeds and tliorns are known by contrast with surrounding flowers, and though upon many even of the latter there may be rain- drops, those that are without are yet more abounding. There are more smiles in the world than tliere are tears ; there is more love than hate, more constancy than forsaking: those that murmur the contrary, choose not for thy com- panions. When the mist rolls away from the mountains, and the landscape stands suddenly revealed, we find that Nature always has Beauty for her end. However long and dreary may be the winter, we are always indemnified by the sj)ring — not merely by the enjoyment of it when it comes, but by the anticipation. So with the mists and wintry days of life ; while they last they are painful, but their clearing away is glorious, and we find that they are only veils and forerunners of something bright. Nature never forgets her sestivalia, nor Divine love its compensations. The common course of things, says Paley, is uniformly in favor of happi- ness. Happiness is the rule, misery the exception. Else would our attention be called to examples of wealth and comfort, instead of disease and want. 155. Giving full, fair play to the intellect and affections, we not only discover what it is to live, and how easy to live happily; but the period of our existence upon earth ceases to be short, and becomes immensely long. It is only the life of the body which is short, or need be so. Beal, human life, is immeasurable, if we will have it so. Each day, remarks Goethe in his autobiography, is a vessel into which a great deal may be poured, if we will actually//^ it up; that is, with thoughts and feelings, and their expression into deeds, as elevated and amiable as we can reach to. It needs little reflection to perceive tliat life truly consists only in such exercises. ^‘The mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, and drink, and sleep, to be exposed to the darkness and WE LIVE IN DEEDS. 253 a 17 the light, to pace round the mill of habit, and turn the wheel of wealth; to make reason our book-keeper, and convert thought into an implement of trade; this is not life. In all this but a poor fraction of the consciousness of humanity is awakened, and the sanctities still slumber which make it most worth while to be. Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, goodness, faith, alone give vitality to the mechanism of ex- istence.’’* Grandly expressed in “Festus.” Life’s more than breath, and the quick round of blood ; ’Tis a great spirit and a busy heart. W^e live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. To measure life by years is, to the true liver, to measure it rather by ages. If we do not feel its immensity, it is to con- fess to inactivity and slumber. When we would ask our- selves how old we are, we should find that we must cast up, not anniversaTries, but days and hours; and to satisfy ourselves how long our life has already been, should reflect, not on the mere animal adjuncts of life, but on the books we have read, the agreeable objects we have had before our eyes, the pleasant places we have visited, the intercourses of friendship by which our hearts have been made glad ; together with the aspirations which have ennobled, and the hopes which have cheered us. We should ‘Haste in thought again” the sweet hours spent by the sea, in the green fields, and in the woods, and the shining; balmy, fragrant moments, each in itself a little summer, brought by the tones, the smiles, the touch, of our Beloved. These are the things that make Life. * Martineau, “Endeavors after the Christian Life.’’ 22 254 AGE NO MATTER OF BIRTH-DAYS. T1r 3 Study even of a single science adds many years to one's biography. For lie who busies himself with chemistry, or botany, or geology, enjoys a thousand pleasant tlioughts in the same space of clock-time wherein the indolent and incu- rious know but one; and every onward step in discovery becomes a new elixir vitce. Tlie invention of logarithms, says Laplace, has ‘lengthened the life of the astronomer.'' As truly may it be said that the invention of the microscope has lengthened the life of the physiologist. Age, accord- ingly, or, as it would be better to call it, oldness, in its high- est idea, is no mere matter of birth-days. The oldest man, truly so called, is he who, giving a free and cheerful recog- nition to life, in its depth, variety, and majesty, has enjoyed the largest number of agreeable spiritual experiences, and retains them vividly before his mind. 156. “Old," in the popular sense of aged and decrepid as to body, denotes a state of things which pertains to man only in his animal, temporal relations. This kind of oldness goes along with eating, drinking, and so forth; the idea of it, therefore, should be wholly detached from the mind when we w^ould think of man in his highest or spiritual reality. The soul that is in right order concerns itself little about physical age, no more than about death ; for youth and life preoccupy its interest. Neither does it feel old age to be an evil. Physical old age, like mortality, is afflictive in pro- portion to the want of inward strength to fall back upon. “ It is painful," says one who has proved the value of such strength, “ it is painful to grow old, to lose by degrees the suppleness, strength, and activity of the body; to perceive each day our organs becoming weaker; but when we feel that the soul, constantly exercised, becomes daily more reflective, more mistress of herself, more skilful to avoid, more strong to sustain, witliout yielding to the shock of accidents, gaining on the one hand what we lose upon the THE TIME FOR ENJOYMENT NEVER PASSED. 255 other, then we are no longer sensible of growing old.” If the soul be not young, youth as to birth-days has no advan- tage over senility. To men who have no resource in them- selves for being happy, every age is burdensome; and were those who complain of the shortness of life as bringing them so soon to the weakness and torpidity of old age, to live for seven hundred years instead of seventy, they would be none the better off. People past their bodily prime are often heard complaining of the decline and degeneracy of things. Since they were young, they say, the world has lost its old simplicities, beauty is , tarnished, and novelty at an end. What does it amount to? Simply, that ‘They who utter these dismal ditties have not cared to keep alive the sympa- thies which carry a man along with his age; that they have not cultivated a habit of genial observation, but have shut themselves up in self and sophistication, under the delusion that the pleasures of youth belong only to the young in years. Foolish and lamentable error. If men have little or no pleasure in their experience of the changes which are brought by increase of years, it is because they are not good and wise enough to find and contemplate the past in the present, and thus induce a sweet and meditative continuity of earliest life.” Dullness is not in lapse of years, but in the unskilful use of them; the tedium of a long journey is not in the miles, but in the complainer; if time be tiresome, it is because we do not spin amusement out of ourselves, as silkworms spin their silk. With the man who has really lived, the time is never past for sublime pleasures. Though many he enjoyed in his youth may no longer be accessible, by reason of his failing muscles, his capacity for the attain- able is free and buoyant to the last. My heart leaps up when I behold The rainbow in the skv I 256 THE INTELLECT IN ADVANCED LIFE. So was it when I was a boy ; So is it now I am a man ; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die I 157. While true old age is that honorable and happy state of soul which intellectual and emotional activities in- duce, there is thus another oldness which comes of those activities being checked in their very start, or turned astray from the course wherein alone are youth and life. How many are there who have scarcely run a score of birth-days, yet are already sere in spirit! How many are there, again, who, though the snow may have long whitened the moun- tain tops, are green with all the spring freshness of thought and feeling, and who dispel, by their manner, all idea of their being ‘‘old.” Time, necessarily, nowhere implies youth : Time, necessarily, makes no one old. Those who are old at sixty or seventy are not made old by lapse of years ; they have been old ever since they were twenty or thirty. Doubtless, here and there, men are made old by the attrition of care and distress on account of others, — and none are more to be sympathized with than these; but in the majority of cases, the oldness we are speaking of comes of sloth or weakness, the result probably of crushing injuries in early years — bad school discipline taking the first place, — or it comes of indifference to religious principle, and thus of giving way to “envy, hatred and malice;” since nothing sooner cankers and shrivels the spirit than uncharitable, un- generous, and selfish habits of will. That which makes old, in the sense of loss of youth of spirit, is not Time, but the consuming action of evil passions, or neglecting to nourish the mind with wisdom. Youth, under right culture, maybe preserved to the very last. . Is it not promised to the obe- dient, that “the child shall die an hundred years old?” “Age,” well observes Mr. Dendy, in his nice little book. The AGE A RELATIVE TERM. 257 Pilgrimage of Thought, “is a mere relative term, and ought not to be employed quoad time, but quoad condition. A thousand disturbing causes may reduce to apathy or imbe- cility the opening intellect of youth; and repose, or manage- ment, or habits of devotion, may render it perennial and energetic to the very close of life.’’ How many and splendid are the examples of the latter! Mason, on his seventy- second birth-day, wrote one of the most beautiful sonnets in our language. Jussieu employed himself, between his eighty-third and eighty-eighth year, in dictating a new edi- tion of his Introduction to Botany; and this not in his mother tongue, but in choice Latin. Goethe was four-score when he completed the second part of Faust. The late Marquis Wellesley was nearly or quite eighty-two when he produced those extraordinary verses, — O Foils Salutis! Vita! Fidesmea! 158. Youth, in fact, viewed as to its essential qualities, is not a state into which we are born, and which w^e grow out of, and leave behind, but a state to which we gradually ad- vance. We are born old, not young. We enter the world blind, deaf, senseless, emotionless, passionless, ignorant; all which conditions are characteristic of oldness, and are repre- sentatively 'expressed in the bald head, the toothless gums, the tottering gait, and the dozen other physical infirmities and negations which belong alike to senility and infancy. By degrees only do we become young, learning in succession to observe, to wish, to will, to think, to love, to hope. If the expanding intellect and affections be affixed, under kindly guidance, to what is truthful and good, youth spreads its wings, and goes on growing in everlasting life; if they be affixed, under vicious or repressing influences, to what is base or ignoble, the beautiful progression is arrested, and the spirit relapses into its original, vacant old age. How it 22 258 CULTURE OF THE AFFECTIONS. is that “the angels are for evei^ growing younger,” we may readily understand by noting the history of the soul wliich earnestly and prayerfully seeks and strives to be angelic; for this is a history of forsaking the evil and choosing the good, bringing youth as its result, and foretelling on earth the law of heaven. 159. Now to attain to this happy state of youth, and thus virtually to lengthen life, requires but that the spiritual energies of our nature should be allowed full, fair play. Giving them their due, old age itself, called dark and feeble, may yet be rendered lovely. It is not only the “mind” or understanding that must be cultivated; the heart must be attended to no less carefully. Nothing is more importaat to remember in reference to self-culture, than that intellectual pursuits call forth only half our nature. True, they infuse a wonderful duration into life as exercises of the attention, the memory, and the agreeable power of investigating the relations of things. But in order to the full realization of life, there is needed also the play of the affections. We must love, as well as think, in order truly to live. Bad as is intellectual sloth, to neglect the cultivation of the feelings is worse. There is no idleness so ruinous as that of the heart. By the affections, as already said, is not meant love towards certain of our fellow-creatures only, and preemi- nently towards One; though this, next to love of the Father of all, is their most excellent activity. The affections are the dispositions of the Will, love to one’s wife, and child, and neighbor, forming a part of them. The dispositions of the Will give quality and intensity to a man’s life in a much higher degree than do the perceptions of the understanding. “Show me what thou truly lovest,” says Fichte, in that beautiful book. The Way to the Blessed Life, “show me what thou truly lovest, show me what thou seekest and strivest for with thy whole heart, when thou hopcst to attain LIFE IS LOVE. 259 to true enjoyment, and thou hast hereby shown me thy life. What thou lovest, is that thou livest. This very love is thy life, the root, the seat, the central point of thy being.” Nothing is attainable unless we love it. ^‘We can sometimes love that which we do not understand, but it is impossible clearly to understand what we do not love.” Learn to love well is therefore the first and golden rule of wisdom. Our true birth-day is when we begin consciously to love the good and comely, and our true birth-place the scene of that love’s arising. Eve, rather than Adam, was called “ Life,” though our first father, considered physically, was equally if not more deserving of the name, because in woman the Affections predominate, as in man the intellectual powers. Loss of the power of loving is loss of life. Directly we cease to love a thing, it no longer has any of the beauty of life for us, nor, though the hands may still possess it, can we any longer call it oiir own. Affection, therefore, alone makes possession sacred. No man can avoid loving, nor can he avoid loving that which God gave him for his affections’ chief delight. Hence it was that the monks, when they made their vow of celibacy, and refused to love woman in her proper person, still were unable to escape loving her in the ideal, and took her image in the Virgin, able to dispense so much the more easily with the genuine, the more ardently they attached themselves to the imaginary. To love the Virgin may be pious, abstractedly, and may bring many pleasant thoughts; but real, practical piety, as well as wis- dom, is to get a terrestrial wife, and love her. You have the advantage, to say the least, of her society. As Adolphe Karr sayS, in “ A Tour round my Garden,” talking of the Hamadryads, I love women under trees, not in them.” True reason and religion have an eye for the earth as well as for heaven. Like the cedar of Lebanon, they have their branches turned to the sky, and soaring beautifully, but 2G0 LIFE IS LOVE. they have their roots in the soil beneatli. Hence then the great and impregnable axiom that Life is Love. Commonly restricted to the play of the amative and philoprogenitive feelings, Love properly denotes the energy, in a happy and beautiful direction, of the entire spiritual nature. It is in this high, impartial, unsensual sense of the word, of course, that we are to be understood as using it. In a derivative sense, it denotes also the riding desire of a man ; that dispo- sition of the will which is predominant with him, and which may or may not be in concord with the intellect. Every man has such a desire. It is ever secretly present to him, and, though he may be immediately occupied with some- thing else, unconsciously governs all his actions. 160. Every one proves that life is love : — that we live only when in union with what we love. Do we not feel it daily ? Absence from what we love is not life, but only dull, uninteresting time. “ It is but a little part of our life that we live,’’ says an ancient poet ; ‘‘ the whole space of it is not life, but time only.”* Many are the sayings which record how wide-spread has been this experience : — Vitd in exilio vitalis non Nee voluj^tas sine vita, nee vita sine voluptate. Life away from that which makes the enjoyment of life, the Greeks called lifeless life.” When others of the ancients shouted, “ O King, live forever !” it was but a metaphorical way of saying, O King! so long as you live, may you be prosperous and happy !” Life and * Menander, in a fragment preserved by Stobceus, Sententice, Tom. 2, Tit. 108. f Thus Ilomeo, — There is no world without Verona\s walls, J>ut purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence })anished is banish’d from the world. And world’s exile is death. LIFE AND TIME. 261 well-being are in tbeir briefest definition, union with the ob- ject of our love ; death and ill-being are the reverse. The poet addresses his beloved as — My life ! my soul !” but what does he in this beyond clothing in speech what all men utter silently ? Whatever be the object of our leading afiection, where the heart is, there too is our life ; and as we are beings directly constituted for sympathy and intimate communion with one of complementary sex, life is real to us in the degree that there is least absolute separation from the chosen. They only can be truly said to live who have a faithful heart to receive and reciprocate the outpouring of their own. It is because all life, whether physical, physi- ological or spiritual, is a state of marriage, or the union of two complementary forces, acting and reacting ; and because all marriage, rightfully so called, is life ; that the bitterest of privations is prolonged severance from one’s other self, and the sweetest of delights, reunion and companionship with her. The presence of those we love is a double life. Hence also the enthusiasm of the lover, emphatically so called, when in the society of his beloved ; and his pining loneliness when away from her ; — her own enthusiasm, her own solitude, no less. “ Five days,” says Clemanthe, — “ Five days. Five melancholy days I have not seen him.’’ To the genuinely fond and faithful, the world has in it two places only — that where she is, and that where she is not Yet has the lover his gay as well as his lonely hours, since the love which is his life beguiles the mind into one long unbroken thought of the beloved, and since into every thought and affection of human nature enter both summer and winter. The summer of his absence is whenever he sees what is beautiful, whether in nature or art, for the Beautiful is ever the likeness of her he loves. He goes into 262 CONJUGAL LOVE. the still country, and while other men see flowers, and clear streams, and golden and purple sunsets, he only sees the fea- tures of the wished-for. Who that has read Eloisa cannot but remember St. Preux in the Valais? Te loquor abscntum : te vox mea nominat imam ! Nulla venit sine te nox mihi, nulla dies ! (Ovid. Tristia, Lib. iii. El. iii.) ^^Thee, beloved consort, I talk to, far away; thee alone does my voice name ; no night, no day, comes to me unclieered by thy sweet vision.’^ 161. But the brilliant charms of sexal love, and the richly glad life which it fashions, are not the lot of all. That many of both sexes should remain celibate all their lives is something more than an accident. It is an arrange- ment of Providence for great and benevolent uses which it is not difficult to estimate. Moreover, of no one of youthful years can it be affirmed that they shall unquestionably en- joy the life which comes of sexal love. Therefore is it wis- dom to encourage those other loves which, though they may not cast upon our pilgrimage an equal radiance, are solid, substantial, enduring, independent of time and place. These are, first, the love of the performance of good uses, in the lecture-room, the Sunday-school, the domestic circle, wherever, in a word, there may be opportunity of sharing with others what Providence has blessed us with, each one according to his aptitude and ability ; secondly, the love of nature. Cultivating these loves, the intellect itself expands and grows wealthier. If the love of these things can be en- joyed along with the love that has its root in sexal differ- ence, it is a joy untold. Life,’’ says Schiller, writing to his friend Kbrner, life at the side of a beloved wife is a different thing from what it is to one who is alone — even in Burnmcr. Now, for the first time, I can thoroughly enjoy CONJUGAL LOVE. 263 Nature, and in her, myself too.” A wife should be chosen for “ her own sweet sake alone,” but if the cLoice be true, we secure at the same moment, an enlarged aptitude for all mi- nor loves. All minor loves indeed, after some mode or other, enter into and become a part of true, fond conjugal love, which thus procures to its possessors a summary or compend of all the riches of the world. “With persons whom we love,” says one of the most charming of authors, “ sentiment fortifies the mind as well as the heart ; and they who are thus attached, have little need to search for ideas elsewhere.” — ( J. J. Eousseau. Confessions, Part ii., Book 2.) CHAPTER XV. THE AFFECTIONS IN AT JON TO FIFE. lOVE OF NA- TVItE, 162. First then, as to good uses. No man is happier than he who loves and fulfills that particular work for the world which falls to his share. Even though the full under- standing of his work, and of its ultimate value, may not be present with him; if he but love it, — always assuming that his conscience approves, — it brings an abounding satisfac- tion. Indeed, we none of us fully comprehend our office, nor the issue we are working for. To man is entrusted the nature of his actions, not the result of them. This, God keeps out of our sight. The most trivial act doubtless goes to the promotion of a multitude of ends, distant it may be from us, but only as the leaves of a tree are distant from their supplying rootlets. And therefore does it behoove us to be diligent in our several spheres. We should work like the bees, sedulous to collect all the honey within our reach, but leaving to Providence to order what shall come of it. The good which our exertions effect, may rarely or never become visible. In teaching, which is the readiest of good uses, how often does all exertion seem in vain. Our duty is never- theless to go on, and strive to do all we can. “ Every man,” says Fichte, in the beautiful book already quoted, every man should go on working, never debating within himself, nor wavering in doii])t, whctlier it may succeed, but labor as if of necessity it yriust succeed.” Between the result of single 264 GOOD ENDEAVORS NEVER WASTED. 265 efforts and the end we have in view, and the magnitude of the obstacles to be overcome, there may often appear a large and painful disproportion ; but we must not allow ourselves to be discouraged by seeming s; warm, hearty, sunny endea- vor will unfailingly meet with its reward. Good uses are never without result. Once enacted, they become a part of the moral world; they give to it new enrichment and beauty, and the whole universe partakes of their influence. They may not return* in the shape wherein played forth, but like- lier after the manner of seeds, which never forget to turn to flowers. ‘‘Philosophers tell us that since the creation of the world, not one particle of matter has been lost. It may have passed into new shapes, it may have combined with other elements, it may have floated away in vapor; but it comes back some time, in the dew-drop or the rain, helping the leaf to grow, and the fruit to swell; through all its wan- derings and transformations Providence watches over and directs it. So is it with every generous and self-denying eflbrt. It may escape our observation, and be utterly for- gotten; it may seem to have been utterly in vain, but it has painted itself on the eternal world, and is never effaced.’’ Nothing that has the ideas and principles of heaven in it can die or be fruitless. Talk not of wasted affection ; affection never was wasted ; If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning Back to their spring, like the rain, shall fill it full of refreshment; That which the fountain sends forth, returns again to the fountain.* Carlyle, in that extraordinary book. Sartor Resartus, shows us that it is from our work we gain most of our self-know- ledge , — one of the most important desiderata of life. “Our * See a beautiful theory of the Fine Arts, founded on these great truths, in Mrs. Child’s Letters from New York. 23 M 266 LOVE OF NATURE. works/’ he says, ‘‘are the mirror within which the spirit fii-st sees its natural lineaments. ‘Know thyself’ is an impossi- ble precept till it be translated into this partially possible one, Know what thou canst work at.” Work is obedience, and self-knowdedge is invaluable, and thus is proved over again that duty and interest are but two names for one fact. 163. Secondly, as to the “love of nature.” This is not to be understood technically. People who by its exercise carry their youth along with them, may not j)rove to be botanists or geologists. Quite as likely they Avill not But it wull rarely prove that they have not accustomed them- selves to an earnest and constant friendship with that of which geology, and botany, and all sciences, barely as such, are only the husks and coverings. They have lived in that which is the spirit and life of all love and all knowledge — the Poetic sentiment. They have lived in the poetry of common things; not necessarily in written poetry, but in the love of the omnipresent ingredients of poetry existing throughout creation, and which are the ingredients likewise of all science and philosophy, sacred and moral as well as physical ; whereby, in fact, they are true poets, though they may never have written a single verse. They have learned, in a word, to feel and to see ; — arts which, though they may seem native and universal, and which, exercised after the manner of quadrupeds, are common enough, in reality are rarely practiced. Happy the man whose walk, in calm April evenings, is arrested by the odor from the opening buds of the balsam poplar. Happy again, who, when he visits the sea-side, is quick to the Crimson weeds which spreading flow. Or lie like pictures on the sand below ; With all those bright red pebbles that the sun Through the small waves so softly shines upon. POETRY OF COMMON THINGS. 267 There is no greater mistake than to suppose that a minute knowledge of nature is requisite either to the love or to the enjoyment of it. Every man who in his walks derives pleasure from the common things of creation, who looks to the fields, the woods, the mountains, and the things that are therein, and reflects upon what he sees, has the true spirit of the naturalist within him, and so far is a botanist and geologist ; thereby is he proved also to be of poetic tempera- ment, for in these objects is the soul of poetry contained ; it is from no other that the poet draws his inspiration, since in nature is the only fund of great ideas. ‘‘ Persons,’’ says the author of Kathemerina, ‘Svho in regard to science may be a whole encyclopsedia behind the rest of the world — who do not know where to look for the Bear, or the place of a single star, may yet have as much pleasure in the sight of nature as those who know its secrets ; the poetry of common life does not require men to be versed in philosophy; Nature never intended that all her children should be engaged in what are pompously called ‘ solid studies.’ ” In these com- mon things of earth lies far more power to delight us than people in general know of All possess them in some sort, as all possess the atmosphere ; but few appreciate them so highly as they deserve, or extract the full value from them. How beautifully is their worth acknowledged in the Song of the Three Children — ‘‘ O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord !” Strange to say, the educated classes seem rather to dislike than to favor common things. They seem to prefer the maxim quee rara, car a. Not so the man of genius. Him we may almost recognize by his sympathy with the familiar and unpretending. The flnest understand- ings, and the noblest souls, says Charron, are the most uni- versal and free. Accustomed to behold the grand whole of things, to such minds all alike “discourse sweet music.” Whether it be the objects of nature, or the hearts of man- 268 CHARM OF SIMPLE-MINDEDNESS. kind, the simple and plain are as pleasing as the great and lustrous. To him, in fact, who realizes the beauty and the freshness of common things, who looks with love upon nature in all its developments, not questioning within himself whether any particular part is more pleasing than another, but attaching himself to the whole, as a great and beautiful power capable of imparting purest joy, there is never any need to search for pleasure ; The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, The common sun, the air, the skies. To him are opening Paradise. Hence too we find such minds taking fullness of delight in little children, their pretty faces, and innocent smiling ges- tures ; glad also to hold intercourse with what are called ‘‘common people,” who so far from being the “vulgar people” of the world, include no small portion of “ nature’s aristocracy.” The vulgar are not necessarily the ignorant, but the proud and the selfish, whatever their rank in society. The pleasure such minds receive, they shed around. As men of genius have faith and joy in simple minds, so these latter, “ timid before the crowd, mute before merely clever people, feel quite at ease in the presence of a man of genius. There is a sympathy of simplicity between them.” Beau- tiful as are the letters of the highly-cultivated, none are so sweet and touching as those that breathe the feelings and sentiments of the simple-minded, especially of the kind- hearted, amiable woman, whose insight and education qualify her to appreciate her husband, without ever aspiring to compete with him. “ Heaven only knows how many simple letters from simple-minded women, have been kissed, cherished, wei)t over, by men of far loftier intellect. So will it always be to the end of time. It is a lesson worth THE ESSENCE OF POETRY. 269 learning by those young creatures who seek to allure by their accomplishments, or dazzle with their wit, that though he may admire, no man ever love8 a woman for these things. He loves her for what is essentially distinct from, though by no means incompatible with them — her woman’s nature and her woman’s heart, guileless, simple, and unaffected. This is why we so often see a man of higli intellectual power passing by the De Staels and Corinnes to take into his bosom some way-side flower, who has nothing on earth to make her worthy of him, except that she is, what so few of your ‘ female celebrities’ are — a true woman.” In fine, whoever teaches us how to enjoy common things, is our greatest benefactor. So to represent familiar objects as to awaken the minds of others to that, freshness of feeling con- cerning them which is the great privilege of genius, is one of the divinest uses human nature can fulfill. 164. It is the very same poetic sentiment which shows itself in the love of good uses ; also in genuine sexal love. It is the same, indeed, which forms the mainspring of true intellectual activity. Wherever any spiritual energy is so exercised as to realize to a man the glory and blessedness of Life, it is the Poetic sentiment seeking to express itself. Therefore would it be no misuse of terms to say that, in its genuine realization, life is Poetry; that divine habitude of soul which “lifts the veil from before the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar things be as though they were not familiar;” which, discerning the holiness, the love- liness, the bright side of all things, makes joy more joyful and sorrow less sad, gives new comeliness to virtue and reli- gion. and “makes the whole human race grow more noble in our eyes.” The very essence of poetry lies in its power to beautify and exalt, and what is this but to lift into a higher realization of life? 23 270 THE IMAGINATION IN REFERENCE TO LIFE. We live by admiration, hope, and love; And even as these are well and wisely fixed. In dignity of being we ascend. Therefore also is perennial youth identified with the encoin ragement and culture, primarily, of the Imagination, one of heaven’s most gracious gifts to man, and therefore one of the most practically useful. Concerned not only with science, and the penetration of the secrets of nature. Imagination is a first essential to human happiness. It is by the play of the imagination, unconsciously it may be, that we are strengthened for the common avocations of life, and that they are rendered not only untiresome, but agreeable; it is by the play of the imagination, no less unconsciously it may be, that every emotion of pleasure is vitalized. Knowledge in itself, feeling in itself, is inanimate. How lovely the rose! Where is the man who is indifferent to it? Yet the rose does not please simply because it is red, nor because so fragrant, nor because of its configuration, nor even from the combination of all these properties. It pleases because the imagination connects it with something human and divine, probably the cheek of woman. Divine,” we say, because the imagination is the faculty which preeminently links us to heaven, its proper home; and because whatever is vitally and essentially human is an expression of something con- tained in Him of whom man is the image and likeness. More nearly than we suppose is imagination connected with morality and religion. So with everything else that men delight in. The senses view one thing, the imagination views another — higher, lovelier, immortal. Whatever seems to gratify, by pleasing the senses, owes its charms to the pencil of the incomparable artist within. An ‘‘unimagina- tive man,” absolutely so styled, or self-styling, is a non- existence. Some individuals may be more imaginative than others, l)ut absolute unimaginativeness is one of the nega* EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 271 tions which degrade brutes. Imagination is the very essence of Hope, without which there is no life. Holding fast when all other parts are threatened with destruction, and bidding defiance to the storms of devastation, Hope, the rebuilder and regenerator, fresh, every morning, like the manna from heaven, represents, in the little world of man, the sanatory powers which maintain nature in its total. Spero, “ I hope,’’ is the same word as spiro, ‘H breathe;” spes is only another name for the “breath of life.”* He who has no future in prospect, is already dead. Life is one incessant wish to live “in the thick of all we desire, some day, and meanwhile we do live there as well as hope and imagination can con- trive it.” 165. The love of nature, if we would prove how long and beautiful it makes existence, must not be left as a mere amusement that can be taken to at any time. Like the love of virtue, it must be commenced in youth. A man may learn a language or a science when he is grown up, but he cannot then learn to love nature. This love he must bring with him from his boyhood, when it germinates in all, though with most dried up in its earliest leaf. How many who have mildewed and rusted amid the mock pleasures of towns, would fain return, when too late, to their first, young love. Doubtless every man carries with him some remnant of his early love for nature, but it is not that deep, animating love which, by its freshness and fullness, keeps the heart green. Vitally to affect us, it must grow with our growth, and strengthen with our strength. Hence the paramount * Our English word “hope’’ conveys precisely the same idea, being cognate with the word “gape,” that is, to open the mouth wide in order to breathe freely. The exchange of g and A is a very com- mon occurrence; “give” and “have,” for instance, are etymolo- gically the same. 272 LEARN TO OBSERVE. value, in the education of youth, of Natural History; or at least of a fostering of the native taste in the human heart for the poetical contemplation of natural objects and pheno- mena. ‘‘Let everything be taught a girl,” says one of the most sagacious of educationists, “ let everything be taught a girl,” and a boy as well, “which forms and exercises the habit of attention, and the power of judging things by the eye. Consequently, Botany, that inexhaustible, tranquil, ever-interesting science, attaching the mind to nature with bonds of flowers. Then Astronomy, not the properly ma- thematical, but the Lichtenbergian and religious, which with the expansion of the universe, expands the mind.”* Espe- cially should these things be taught to the children of the 2 ^oor, whose means of indulgence in costly pleasures are so scanty. There is not a child who does not delight in wild flowers, and whose intelligence cannot be led, if kindly dealt with, to find in Botany a pleasure which of all others re- quires least outlay of time and money, and is most easily and permanently within reach. To suppose that the poor are less able to learn than the rich, that they have not “ minds ” for such things, and that they are adapted only foi operatives and domestic servants, is most thoughtless. Many a servant girl has as much taste and talent as her mistress and the young ladies. 166. It is the forming and strengthening this Jiahit of at- tention which stamps so much efficiency on natural history, even in its most prosaic pursuit. When Solomon tells us with all our gettings to “ get understanding,” it is but an- other way of saying. Learn to observe. One of the chief functions, therefore, of the instructor of youth, if unable to communicate positive knowledge of natural objects, should be so to consolidate the interest of the youthful mind in J. P. Kiel) ter. Levnna, or the Doctrine of Education, p. 255 HOW TO KEEP THE HEART YOUNG. 278 what of its own free will it is never slow to observe, that the country shall continue, what it may be to all, a perennial gladness and solace, not unintelligently, but because thronged with old friends. A human heart can never grow old if it bring with it from its childhood a lively interest in the re-appearance of spring flowers, the habits of birds and insects, the changing tints of the October leaves. The natu- ralist’s poem is the Pleasures of Memory and the Pleasures of Hope both in one. He has always a to-morrow to his pleasures, whereas with most there is only a yesterday and to-day. Let the young not neglect or despise these sweet pleasures, and they will find that when old they will not de- part from them. Unhappily, children’s love of nature is for the most part not only not encouraged, but checked and deadened. How else is it that the mass of mankind — say only of the ‘‘educated” and well-to-do — how else is it that they are so indifferent to the works of creation, except in so far as they can be made to subserve some selfish end? Who is to blame? Not He who gave them, for nothing is put in the presence of mankind that the universal human intellect may not appreciate. Neither is it from lack of opportunity or invitation. It is the half-system of teaching which, born of the ruling half-system of theology, loves to dwell with it among the tombs, instead of coming out into the light and pure air of genuine philosophy and genuine Christianity. The poor lad of the streets, to whom the very daisy and buttercup are strange exotics, whose holiday is with marbles down in the dust, is in vital education no worse off than many a little gentleman who gets his prizes for Latin* * No sort of disparagement of Latin is here intended. We know its value too well. But how inordinately and ridiculously the dead languages have been honored, to the almost total exclusion of other branches of knowledge, is sufficiently notorious. See the clever ar- M 274 CLASSICAL EDUCATION. Drill a boy at mere book-lessons, and the chances are that either he becomes a pedant, or disgusted with learning and books for the whole of his life after ; whereas in using natu- ral history as a lever of education, you secure numberless and most happy opportunities for communicating both knowledge and the taste for it, together with just and amia- ble sentiments. It is one of the best of mental disciplines. No mere pastime for the observation and the memory, na- tural history, pursued seriously and connectedly, calls for the activity of every faculty of the mind. To take a grass or a fern, and determine in succession its family, genus, and sjDecies, is an educational exercise little, if at all inferior to the verification of a theorem of Euclid. Let there be a deep, unsoj)histicated love of nature, and it will even serve in the place of much that is commonly called educa- tion. How much grace and dignity does the love of nature give to minds in other respects simple and scantily furnished, especially in females. There may be no learning, there may be no accomplishments,’’ but if there be a deep, fond love of nature, it compensates for the w^ant of all, and we find a more lively and engaging companionship than in the society of the profoundest scholar who is void of it. People should cultivate this love, and bring up their children in it, if they w^ould but realize the full beauty of the commonest objects of household ornament. Nobody knows how to like shells who has not collected them on the firm wet sand uncovered by the retiring waves. Nobody knows how to like flow^ers who has not gathered primroses beneath the tender foliage of the spring. Where, moreover, w^e find this love present, we may take it as a sign of still better things, seeing that its tide in the Westminster Keview for October, 1853, on Classical Education, its use and abuse ; or better still, Mr. Chapman^s reprint of it, with the appendix of extracts from cotemporary writers NATURAL HISTORY. 275 very province is to refine. When, on entering a house, you see a few choice flowers tastefully arranged, you may expec’t a shelf of wise and good books not far off. And so with the manifestation of the soul. 167. The love of nature requires no peculiar circum- stances. Its sphere is wherever the sun is shining, because it addresses itself to what the listless call weeds and stones, finding poetry and delight where the dull cry all is barren. It revels in a glorious landscape, but where the landscape is not, it constructs one in miniature for itself. Nothing in the world is absolutely uninteresting to it, nor can be — what is there indeed that, in any relation, has lost its primal qua- lity of very good What is there that we should not es- teem it a privilege to possess, although it be “ common ?” Is it nothing to have the frost-flowers on the window-panes ? Is it nothing to have the blue sky ? Is it nothing to have the stars and the rainbow? Oh, what grand and awful things surround us, if we will but look forth upon them ! But because they are “ without money and without price,” we make nought of them; refusing to enjoy, because accept- ance and admiration alone are asked. That sublime sense of the wonderful which they excite in us when children, is one of the sentiments we should most anxiously keep alive. When we cease to view with interest the familiar phenomena of nature, its rarest and grandest lose in charm. Why do not preachers speak more of these things ? If the office of religious teaching be to amend man’s heart, surely the study of the works of God, as well as of his word, deserves some little notice and recommendation. The religious contempla- tion of nature has more efficacy in this way than mere scho- lastic theologians suppose. ‘‘ The moral constitution of man,” beautifully observes Dr. Moore, is so intimately in keeping with the outward cosmos, that it is vain to attempt to regulate our faculties and feelings without respect to the 276 NATURAL HISTORY AND THE 1>ULPIT. ordinances of God in the material creation.”* The pulpit is not the place for lectures on natural history, but neither is it a place for discarding or forgetting it, at least after the man- ner of the preachers that be. “ In recommending the love of God to us, how seldom do they refer to those things in which it is most abundantly and immediately shown ! They insist much on his giving of bread, raiment, and health (which he gives to all inferior creatures), but they require us not to thank him for that glory of his works which he has permitted us alone to perceive. They tell us often to meditate in the closet ; but tliey send us not, like Isaac, into the fields at even. They dwell on the duty of self-denial, but they exhibit not the duty of delight.” To genuine theology nothing in the world is without signifi- cance ; nor is it anything unfit for citation in its discourses, when it would seek to interpret the word of God, and en- force its teachings. The test of enlightened preaching is its ability to “ consider the lilies,” and deduce from their his- tory religious wisdom. The great defect of what is called moral and religious teaching, as ordinarily carried on is, that it continually tells us what we are not to do, whereas genuine wisdom begins by giving something to he done, and showing how to do it. In its very simplest form, if you would keep a child out of mischief, set him to some interesting employment. Don’t do that,” goes for nothing unless fol- lowed by ‘‘ do this.” That mankind may become more moral and religious, let those who are anxious for it, administer less reproof, and give in place of it, an interest in life; show how much there is to live for, and how easily procured. 168. The love of nature should be cherished for the sake of the tranquility it induces. A man can be of importance to others only when he is himself happy and peaceful, and Use of tlie Body in relation to the Mind. P. 163. MORAL INFLUENCE OF NATURE. 277 nothing so much tends to make him so as the contemplation of nature. The serenity we find in the fields and the woods, and by clear streams, we imbibe into our own hearts, and thus derive from nature itself the very condition of spirit which is needful to the enjoyment of it. In towns we may find diversion, but we cannot find repose; calmness, in which alone can the soul put forth its leaves and blossoms, is for the solitudes of nature alone to give; cheerfulness, which arises only from the peaceful enlightenment of the spirit, finds in the same its sincerest and warmest friend. ‘‘ I wondered,’’ says Eousseau, describing his first experience of this, ‘‘ I wondered to find that inanimate beings should over-rule our most violent passions, and despised the impo- tence of philosophy for having less power over the soul than a succession of lifeless objects.” It is not the prerogative of a few. Ask any man who has accustomed himself to commune with nature, and he will testify that apart from the intellectual culture attained by scientific acquaintance with its objects — and apart from the admiration of creative skill and goodness which they excite — there is in nature a nameless and subtle influence, analogous to the influence of human beings, and like that, acting upon us silently and secretly, but most powerfully. If any would prove it in his own person, let him go in the refulgent summer to where the warmth and breeze will wrap him round ; where he may hear the singing of birds, and the sound of leaves and boughs stirred by the wind, so like the grand, perpetual song of the sea; where he can view without effort, the smooth, green grass, stretching far away, interrupted only by masses of the heavy, sumptuous foliage of the year’s glorious centre ; water in the distance, its ripples lighted by the sun ; let him go alone amid these things, or even a small part of them, and live with them for half an hour, then say seriously, if he can, that he has not felt his spirit breathed 24 2r8 THE SPIRITUAL EVER NEAR US. on by some unseen Power, and ascend under that breath into a liolier life. It is good to leave otlicr people some- times, even to leave our own thoughts, and to dwell amidst this mysterious, powerful, moulding influence, submitting our whole being to it, passively. If we take calmness idth us, that calmness transmutes into religion ; if we take trouble and disquietude, they melt away. ‘‘When the vex- ations of the world have broken in upon me,’^ says Water- ton, “ I go away for an hour or two amid the birds of the valley, and seldom fail to return with better feelings than when I set out.^^ Doubtless it is true that nature is “ colored by the sjiirit f that it dons a festive or a mourning garment according as its master does : that in nature of itself, there is nothing either sad or joyful. But none of this is incompatibly true. What soothes, ameliorates, and ennobles us when in the presence of nature, consists not in the objects we And there, but in the ministrations from the spiritual world, which, by going into that sacred and peaceful presence, we provide with congenial opportunity. For it is one of the sublimest laws of Divine Providence that spiritual gifts (which are influences on the heart), shall always be best conferred in the presence of their material representa- tives. Hence the institution of the representative bread and wine, of sacrifices on altars, of baptism, and of every other genuine religious rite and ceremonial. Hence likewise the taking of the disciples to the sea-shore, the mountain, and the corn-fields. The spiritual is ever near to us, but it is in the solitudes of nature, when we are face to face with the unmarred works of God, that our hearts are most acces- sible to his inspirations. These it is which refresh us ; not the sunshine and the landscape : as in reading the Bible, it is not the reception of the words by the eye which invigor- ates, but that which during our reading is infused into the soul. Let us not unduly exalt nature. People say God TOWN VERSUS COUNTRY. 279 made the country, and man made the town, as if the latter were altogether evil. Both have their sanctities, and both their mighty influence for good. How many are the sweet, endeared and endearing Homes, where the affections, taste, elegance, and holy communings beautifully intermingle, and sustain each other’s life. The true place to live in is a great city. If vice be there, and turbulence, still it is there only that we get society, stimulus, libraries. CHAPTER XVI. THE INTELLECTUATj FACULTIES IN DELATION TO LIFE, 169. More readily to apprehend the nature and use of the spiritual faculties, especially those which belong to the Intellectual province of the soul, we may here briefly con- sider the fine correspondence which they hold with physical Hunger and Thirst, and the means by which the latter are satisfied and allayed. The hunger and thirst of the body represent our spiritual desires and longings; the eating and drinking which appease them are counterparts, respectively, of the solacing of the affections with what they love, and of the acquisition of knowledge by the understanding. Mutatis mutandis, all the governing principles, requirements, and ac- tivities of the soul and the body with regard to nourishment, are the same. They similarly famish under privation of food, and improve upon generous diet; hunger, which has done so much for man as a physical affection, has scarcely done less as a spiritual one. Figuratively, or in acknow- ledgment of the correspondence, we speak of feeding our hopes, thirsting for knowledge, listening with avidity, im- bibing information. When we acquire that information, we ‘^digest it, — we ‘‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digesV’ IIow beautiful are the allusions of the poets! My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge I — Julius Ccesar, iv. 3. Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of the spirit. Evangeline- SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 281 In Ion, the pestilence-stricken, dying mother (fearing to communicate the infection,) forbears to give a last embrace to her little child, — Stifling the mighty hunger of the heart. What pathos, again, in the unhappy Lady Constance, — O Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son ! My life, my joy, my food, my all the world; My widow’s comfort, and my sorrow’s care ! The “hunger of the heart” is not merely the longing for that which is beloved, but far away, or denied to it; it is that beautiful fervency of the affections which makes them yearn for something to call their own, something that shall be the secret joy and solace of their life. Of its very nature, the heart must and will have something to love and be kind to; it cannot live without; it never was intended to; whence if precluded from that which it knows of and longs for, but cannot secure, it will half-unconsciously pet even a dog or a bird. In Scripture, the native land and home of all true poetical expression, “eating” denotes the reception in our souls of the love of God; “drinking” the reception of his wisdom; these being the Divine elements by which our spiritual nature is invigorated and sustained, and the gift of which was representatively expressed in the miracles of feed- ing the hungry. It is because all things come of the Divine Love and Wisdom, and because physical things universally are images of spiritual ones, that the bodies of all living creatures require both food and drink, and are constructed of solids and liquids, and that no vital function ever does or can take place except through their combined instrument- ality. Agreeably, thirst is used in the inspired volume to express desire for truth ; hunger to express aspiration after love. “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, 24 282 COIlRESrONDENCE OF BREAD AND WATER. come and eat,* yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price!” Of this present life it is said, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteous- ness;” and in the Apocalypse, of the multitudes of heaven, that “they never more hunger nor thirst,” which means that in the Better Land is plenitude of wisdom and delight. Bread, the staff of life, is so often spoken of in the Word of God, because the representative of heavenly good, or Divine love, and because there is not a single condition of life in which we can dispense with that good, although we may not receive it consciously. A man who will not eat must needs die in a little time. Correspondingly, the spiritual life soon becomes extinct, or reduced to its lowest ebb, if the means which can alone support it be not used. Hence we are instructed to pray without ceasing, “ Give us this day our daily bread.” Ashur, says the promise, which all may realize, “shall always have bread.” Elsewhere Je- hovah is described as pouring out his spirit on the earth, and saying, — “I will give water to those which are athirst.” Water is the emblem of truth, as bread is of good. “Who- soever drinketh of the water I shall give him, shall never thirst.” Perceiving the correspondence, in the inmost of our minds, we speak of truth, even colloquially, as flowing from a fountain, also as a sea, and an ocean. “I seem to myself,” said Sir Isaac Newton, “to have been picking up a few shells upon the beach, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” 170. Beligious or theological truths universally represent themselves in secular things; as the religious life needs the divine “ flesh and blood,” which “ except ye eat, ye can have no life in you,” so docs the life of temporal intelligence and * as applied to drinking, is similarly used by Homer, — '‘cat the fat sheep and excellent sweet wine.” — (II. xii. 319.) FOOD FOR THE MIND. 283 emotion need its own appropriate aliments, “ the food for the mind” so often talked of, and which true Benevolence always remembers to provide, by establishing the means of Educa- tion. To urge this latter principle would be no more than to dilate upon one of the oldest texts of common-sense; but it is not superfluous to observe that were the simple rules of common-sense which those who have it are so zealous in en- forcing upon the body, as zealously enforced upon man’s moral and intellectual nature, they would prove the best practical philosophy. That ‘‘food for the mind,” moreover, must be nutritive and wholesome. “ The stalwart and florid components of a masculine life-hood demand the materials of vitalization, not those which conserve squalor. The intellect, as well as the body, demands strong, regular, solid, aliment. If the human mind,” continues one of the most eloquent preachers of modern times, “grow dwarfish and enfeebled, it is, ordinarily, because left to deal with common- place facts, and never summoned to the effort of taking the span and altitude of broad and lofty disclosures. The under- standing will gradually bring itself down to the dimensions of the matters with which alone it is familiarized, till, hav- ing long been accustomed to contract its powers, it shall lose, well-nigh, the ability to expand them.” Mental culture is thus, essentially, mental nourishment We cannot expect to enjoy strength of mind,” vigor of mind,” “intellectual power , or by whatever other name the manly energy of the soul may be designated, unless we furnish it with food such as it can turn into swift, red blood. Neither can we expect to see these things if by training we do not teach the soul how to be hungry, which is to be done by demanding of it constant, tasking exercise. The laws of the body are those of the mind. Exercise and excitement strengthen and ener- gize, — though both may be carried to an extreme, and then be hurtful by exhausting — indolence and habits of insensi- 284 CURIOSITY THE APPETITE OF THE MIND. tiveness contract, and debilitate, and at length kill. As a man may always judge of liis physical state of health by the quality of appetite with which he sits down to his meals, so may he of his spiritual health by the interest he feels in wisdom. Men who realize and thoroughly enjoy their animal life, do so by virtue of their good Appetite, and by the legitimate satisfaction of it ; they who live the higher life of the intellect, do so by virtue of their Curiosity, which is the appetite of the understanding. No man is truly happy who has not a large curiosity as to the beauties and riches of the world in which we dwell ; tempered, neverthe- less, with prudence as to the time, and method, and extent of his gratifications. Of all the evils man is subject to, assuredly not the least is wicuriousness ; perhaps it should be classed among the greatest. Certainly there is no evil more abounding. How many listen to philosophy, if they can be said to listen at all, only with polite aversion, as though the speaker were discoursing in an unknown tongue ; how many are the minds whose appetite is altogether vitiated and depraved, which is tantamount to being lost, turning away from all really substantial food as if it were so much poison. It needs not that a man be uneducated to be in- curious. It is not so much of Education commonly so called, that curiosity comes ; but of quickening the mind with life to educate itself. The customary endeavor to instil a large amount of mere dry, unvitalizing knowledge tends to repress curiosity rather than to excite it. Grammars and lexicons, whether of language or of‘ any other form of knowledge, serve oftener to kill than to make alive. Les- sons, as such, or in the sense of parrot-knowledge, are only mind-slaughter.’’ If it be desired to promote a good appetite, whether of mind or body, it is not to be done by confinement and gorging, wliich soon destroy it utterly; the body must be taken into tlie j)lay-grounds of nature, and TRUE IDEA OF EDUCATION. 285 the mind be inspired through the imagination, upon which curiosity itself depends. A child’s imagination can hardly be too much encouraged, provided always that it be guided to some resting-place, where it can repose awhile, and in due time, onwards again, but always with an interval. To ex- cite a child’s imagination, sets all its best feelings in motion ; mere facts are as useless to it as they are dreary; they die upon a child’s heart like rotten leaves.* Education, in the popular acceptation of the word, might often be dispensed with to advantage if Inspiration could be communicated in place of it. To that genial stimulus of the best energies of the soul into work on their own behalf, which it is the mark and proud office of a great nature unconsciously to commu- nicate — that stimulus of which all who have stood in the presence of such natures, have been rapturously sensible ; and which they look back upon as the Aurora of their spiritual day — to that alone should the sacred name of Education be applied. It was his power of inspiring that gave such wonderful success to the late truly eminent Pro- fessor Stuart, of Andover. Many a man of celebrity has been heard to say — I first learned to think under the in- spiration of Mr. Stuart ; he first taught me how to use my mind ; his first words were an epoch in my history.” Stuart proved more perhaps than any other man has ever done, that the excellence of a teacher does not consist in lodging his own ideas safely in the remembrance of his pupils, but in arousing their individual powers to independent action, in giving them vitality, hope, fervor, courage, in dispelling their drowsiness, and spurring them onward to self-improve- * vSee the excellent remarks on this subject in Harriet Martineau’s Home Education, chapter xxii. ; also the article Civilization’’ in Blackwood for January, 1855, p. 26 and onwards. 286 AIM OF THE TRUE TEACHER. ment.* It is to such men and their influence that Plato alludes so eloquently; ‘‘Inspired by the Muses, they com- municate the sacred fire to others, who again pass it on to other minds, and so form whole circles of divine enthusiasts.” Longinus also, in that beautiful passage where he speaks of those who, though of themselves they little feel the power of Phoebus, “ swell with the inspiring force of those great and exalted spirits.^f The notion that we must be taught everything is false and destructive. It is better to be tauglit very little, provided that a noble curiosity b.e excited, and then the object of education is virtually accomplished. The most extended course of teaching, conducted by the best- informed masters, often fails to take the anticipated effect ; it is by that which we acquire for ourselves that we are really elevated, and it is that alone which lifts us above other men. What the world calls “ great men” owe their nobility mainly to their self-culture. Great minds, more- over, it will almost always be found, are such as have had this invaluable sentiment of curiosity early awakened and judiciously fostered. The avowed principle of education with the mother and first intellectual guide of §ir William Jones was to “ excite his curiosity.” With curiosity for its dominant force, the mind becomes open and prepared for everything; and although on many points it may long remain uninformed, it is capable, at a moment’s notice, of receiving information. It is the inquiring boy who usually becomes the philosophic man, and the philosopher thus en- gendered who is most likely to “ ripen into the priest,” tho highest (and seldomest) development of human nature. * See the memoir of this eminent man in Kitto’s Journal of Sacred Literature for January, 1853, to wliich we are indebted for the above. f Compare Coningsby, Book 3d, chapter 2d. KNOWLEDGE MUST BE ASSIMILATED. 287 What the Boy admires, The Youth endeavors, and the Man acquires. The incurious man, on the other hand, is not thus receptive, and from his very incuriousness, never becomes great. 171. Appetite, after all, must not be mistaken for Acqui- sition. It is not much reading that builds up wisdom and life; a man may injure himself and cancel his true life by careless or ill-timed reading, as readily as he may hurt his body by unseasonable eating and unwholesome foods. It is through not properly discriminating between these two courses and their results, that with many persons there is a kind of suspicion and distrust of the value of learning. But that culture, whether of body or soul, is alone injurious, which has no regard to time, and means, and measure. “Desultory reading is indeed very mischievous, by fostering habits of loose, discontinuous thought, and by relaxing the power of attention, which of all our faculties needs most care, and is most improved by it. On the other hand, a well-regulated course of study will no more weaken the mind than hard exercise will weaken the body; nor will a strong understanding be weighed down by its knowledge, any more than an oak is by its leaves, or than Samson was by his locks. He whose sinews are drained by his hair, must already be a weakling.”* What we have to do, in order to be healthy and strong, is not merely to eat, but to assimilate what we eat. To read merely for reading’s sake is almost as unprofitable as not reading at all. Setting out, in the first place, with a clear idea of what we wish to learn, which is eminently important, we must afterwards, if we would realize what we have read, reperuse it in thought. This only makes it truly our own. Better still is it to write down * Guesses at Truth. 1, 212. 288 PHILOSOPHY OF READING. the central ideas, or seek to communicate them in conversa- tion. ‘‘All knowledge,^’ says Whipple, “however imposing in appearance, is but superficial knowledge, if it be merely the mind’s furniture, and not the mind’s nutriment. It must be transmuted into mind, as food into blood, in order to become wisdom and power. Many of the generals op- posed to Napoleon understood military science as well as he did, but he beat them on every occasion where victory de- pended on a wise movement made at a moment’s thought, because science had been transfused into his mind, while to theirs it was only attached,^^^' It does not follow, because we seem to ourselves to possess things, that we veritably pos- sess them. Though a man may have collected a thousand facts in the ologies and the graphys, he may yet not possess one of them in reality; though he cover himself with fea- thers, it needs something else that he may fly; it is of no use merely to see what is true, unless by assimilating it, we prove its efficacy, and feel it exerting upon us some salutary effect. Accordingly, it is not so much the reading of books, and the manual part of science, and the promenade part of visits to the fields and the sea-side, from which we are to expect spi- ritual aliment; we are nourished only as these things are iiicorporated into our inmost thought. Many, especially young persons, make it a matter of pride that they are “great readers.” They literally devour books, yet what good does it do them? Life, real, enjoyable life, is im- mensely dependent on intellectual and reading habits, but it never comes of mere gormandizing. “We read to live, not live to read.” Mere consumers of books not only derive no true nourishment from what they read, but are total strangers to the higher pleasures of literary taste. Like the * “On Intellectual Health and Disease,’’ in a clever set of Essays on Literature and Life. (American.) HOW TO READ WITH MOST PROFIT. 289 lower animals, they feed only, they do not eat To eat, in the true idea of the act, requires a far more scientific use of the mouth than is the case with mere feeding. Epicurism is no mere invention of low sensuality; they who practice it do but carry to an unworthy extreme one of the most excel- lent and characteristic powers of human nature. No man is wise who is not an epicure within the legitimate limits; none are more foolish and unkind to themselves than those who regard only quantity and speed. So with the mental palate.. If we be not deliberate epicures in our reading, half our advantages and privileges are thrown away, and we are only like quadrupeds unintelligently munching grass. Not that we ought to pick out Apician morsels. We are not to read books merely with a view to passages which have reference to ourselves, or for the sake of the more splendid ones, or of such as may support favorite theories. This is to refuse the greater part of their worth, often not to discover it at all, and is the secret of many books being thrown aside as dull and tiresome. Often when a man says he ‘‘sees nothing” in a given book, the fact of the matter is simply that he does not see himself in it, which, as a clever writer remarks, “if it be not a comedy or a satire, is likely enough.” No book should ever be read except with two distinct aims, first, our own improvement; second, the just apprehension of the author, whom we have never properly read, and therefore not benefited by, till we have seen his subject as he saw it, whether right or wrong. To this end we must possess ourselves of all the spirit that lies beneath the words, mastering that internal character, sense and de- sign of the work, to which our regard from the first moment should be directed. Hence too the value as well as pleas- antness of two persons reading together. Each perceives different beauties, and in each is awakened a train of differ- ently-associated ideas, throwing light from opposite sides 25 N 290 SELECTION OF BOOKS. upon the arguments and illustrations, so that the author is more thoroughly understood, and as a consequence, more truly enjoyed. Especially should husband and wife asso- ciate in their reading, he profiting by her feminine or affec- tional insight, she by his logical intelligence. 172. Many read less than they would perhaps, from the seeming difficulty in the selection of books. How are we to judge, they say, what books will, and what will not repay perusal? To tell a good book is not really perplexing, any more than to distinguish a wholesome food. A good book, like a great nature, opens out a fine foreground, wherever we may open it, and like the breath of a summer’s morning, invites us onward. It may be known by the number of fragmentary, aphoristic sayings which may be gleaned from it, full of grace and pleasing truth, as flowers on that summer morning’s walk. Bacon and Shakspere have multitudes of such sayings. The Bible has more than all other books to- gether. Books that soon perish, die because void of them. They make the difference between books of ideas, and books of mere words. The value of a book consists not in what it will do for our amusement, but in what it will communicate. Whether dealing with fancy or with fact, all books in their kind are dictionaries, and those are the best which yield most material for reflection. It is not fine writing, as many suppose, that makes fine books. Books are fine only in so far as they flow from sound and abundant knowledge, a picturesque and unobtrusive presentation of which is their infallible characteristic. It is given, moreover, compactly. When an author of any pretensions is found abridging everything, the simj)le fact of the matter is that he perceives everything. Diffusiveness is always a sign either of poverty or pride; nothing of his, the vain man thinks, can ever be too much. Good books, again, may be known by their rarely containing anything unintelligible to earnest reading, CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD BOOKS. 291 whatever hardness may appear upon the surface. We should always he glad to find a book invite us further and deeper than we have previously gone; for if it do not, it will only leave us where we were. Those writers who never go further into a subject than we can readily accompany them, or than is compatible with making what they say indisputably clear to man, woman, and child, may gratify us, indeed; — by awakening and enlivening our recollections, they may even benefit us ; — but they do nothing whatever to increase the vigor of our intellect, for how can we gather strength except by exercise? They may, by virtue of popularity of theme, be the lights of their own age; but they certainly will not be the lights of succeeding ages; nor though they may please for the hour, can we permanently entertain a high opinion of them, any more than we esteem a river deep when we find that we can readily see the bottom. On the other hand, we should never allow ourselves to be dismayed by seeming hardness, remembering rather that the author has only half the work to do, the reader a duty on his own side; that to apply ourselves closely, in fact, is the way to get the mental strength we find ourselves deficient in. The best writer, it has been said, is he who merely states his pre- mises, and leaves his readers to work out the conclusions for themselves. Still may we be sure that men who are really competent to teach, always so teach that attention may un- •derstand. The truly instructive mind, when it plays forth the beautiful abundance of its wisdom, always condescends to be intelligible. The lessons of true intelligence are like the rays of the morning sun; the light and magnitude are revealed, but the splendor is reserved, pleasing the more, by dazzling the less. No author can be expected^ to do all. “Learn to observe’’ is as needful a maxim in reading as in natural history. It was remarked by the celebrated Haller, that while yawning we are deaf; the same act of drowsiness 292 BOOKS THAT SHOULD BE AVOIDED. that stretches open our mouths, shuts up our ears. It is much the same in the exercises of the understanding; a lazy half-attention is in effect a mental yawn. ‘‘Where a subject that demands thought, has been thoughtfully treated, we must be willing to make similar efforts on our own part, and think with the author, or in vain will the author have thought for us.” Another excellent test of a good book is that the opinions of its author do not range with those of any recognized party. It will not readily fall in with any particular creed in theology or school in philosophy; libra- rians do not know what to do with it ; and sectarians become angry and abusive. Freedom from sectarian bias by no means implies freedom from religion. So far from this, every great and good book, whatever may be its subject, dis- closes from beginning to end, a devout and intelligent sub- mission to revealed truth. Books that give no recognition to religion are stones rather than bread. Here we see our way towards learning what to avoid , — a difficulty almost as great as that of choice. One golden rule will almost include the whole, namely. Avoid all that class of literature which has a knowing tone. “Every truly good book, or piece of book, is full of admiration and awe; it may contain firm assertions or stern satire, but it never sneers coldly, nor as- serts haughtily, and it always leads you to reverence and love something with your whole heart.” What constitutes an “improper” book, depends chiefly on the intelligence and purity of the reader. To charge unfitness upon a book, unless it be in palpable antagonism with Scripture and good manners, is often only to show that the plane of thought is low and contracted. Detractors and small critics would do well to remember that many kinds of errors are only possi- ble to great souls, and that the very circumstances which in their weak vision render a work “ unfit,” may certify a most royal nature and descent. The assistance in choice of books LITERARY CRITICISM. 293 furnished by Critics and Reviewers, upon the whole is un- trustworthy. They may have intellect enough to criticize, but the preeminent quality needed to their vocation is Christian love to the neighbor. The primary office of a critic is not, as many seem to think, to detect imperfections. That is a very shallow mind which seeks to distinguish itself by facility in finding errors, trying to make superior ones appear stupid. ‘‘The first duty of the critic is to create happiness where it may be done faithfully, and to shrink from giving pain where it can honestly be avoided.’’ Stead- fastly to adhere to this, the highest principle of criticism, requires, however, too noble a nature to be met with fre- quently. “A true critic,” says Addison, “ought to dwell upon excellences rather than defects; to discover the con- cealed beauties of a writer; and communicate to the world such things as are worth its observation.” The rule applies universally. Rightly to comprehend and estimate things, whether in Art, literature or nature, we must train ourselves to admiration of Excellence. The contrary course serves only to blind and darken. He who does not strive to rise above nature, will sink below it. Finally, let our favorite subject of study be what it may, we should above all things take care not to restrict our reading too much to particular themes or particular authors. “ Preserve proportion in your reading,” says Dr. Arnold. “Keep your view of men and things extensive, and depend upon it, a mixed knowledge is not a superficial one. As far as it goes, the views it supplies are true; whereas he who reads in one class of writers only, contracts views which are almost sure to be perverted, and which are not only narrow, but false.” 173. Solicitude for food, or hunger, and the appeasing it legitimately and discreetly, are thus the inseparable signs and attestations of health and vigor in the life of the spirit as well as in that of the body. Where there is no desire for 25 * i!94 SIGNS OF A HEALTHY MENTAL APPETITE. food there is no true enjoyment, and lie is the happiest man who feels how closely he relies both upon physical food and spiritual food. A constant question in our self-examination should be, what is the disposition of our minds, including both the intellectual and the affectional faculties, towards nature, and towards literature, and prc 'minently, towards the word of God — in a word, what is our appetite for the ‘‘ feast of reason No man can ever say to himself enough.” As the meals we made in our youth avail no- thing to the renewal of our bodies of to-day, so, if we would live spiritually, we must perpetually feed the soul. Irre- spectively of new truths, how much of what we acquired in years gone by, imperceptibly slides away, and needs to be reclaimed ! The ideas, like the children of our youth,” as Locke beautifully observes, often die before us, and our minds not seldom represent those tombs to which we are ap- proaching, where, though the brass and marble remain, the inscriptions are effaced, and the imagery is mouldered away. The pictures in our minds are drawing in fading eolors, and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear.” Hence the importance of surrounding ourselves with what is beau- tiful, as far as lies in our power, so as to keep those ideas as much as possible from decay. Hazlitt has said somewhere of the portrait of a beautiful female, with a noble counte- nance, that it seems as if an unhandsome action would be impossible in its presence. Most men of any refinement must have felt the truth and force of this sentiment; it helps us to understand the importance of having beautiful pictures, statues, models, and other works of art, round about us in our daily sitting-rooms, so that correspondent ideas may be continually excited, ideas of opposite nature repulsed, and old thoughts kept alive. As famishing men fiicd upon what is nearest, so does the hungry soul upon what is close at hand, thus possibly upon evil things, if we BOOKS AND EXTERNAL NATURE. 295 omit to encircle it with good. Hence, too, we may see the importance of keeping our books within sights instead of in a book-case upstairs. 174. After the correspondence of physical feeding with intellectual feeding, as regards the general principle, it is interesting to note how close is that which subsists between the two principal species of spiritual food, or books and ob- jective nature. As there is a ‘‘ book of nature,” so in a good library are there ‘‘waving woods and pastures ever new.” Books, regarded in their highest and truest light, are as much a part of nature as gardens. Gardens indeed they are. We do not quit nature when from walking in the fields we step into our study; we only enter into another presence of nature. We must not suppose that because in dictionaries nature is the contrary to art, there is nature only where art has not been superadded. As in winter, though the forests be bare and the birds mute, the delights of the true lover of the country are nevertheless not decidu- ous till the spring ; so where there is solid affection for truth and loveliness, no place is empty of nature, but simply filled after another manner. The only difference a soul so ani- mated is conscious of, is that while summer is more pecu- liarly the time to feel, and winter to think, the fields and the library are their happiest arenas respectively. Books teach us to understand nature ; nature, in turn, teaches us how to understand books. So animated, going into rural paths is reading. When Goethe’s exemplar, Kleist, was asked why so fond of lonely country walks, “ I go,” said he, “ hunting for images.” Similarly, when we tread our “duke- dom large enough,” we find in its immortal voices that be- nign, medicinal tranquility, without which. Life is a thing we hear of, but never truly feel. For, as said before, we be- come conscious of Life in the degree that our minds, though at work, are in repose — not unemployed, but at ease and 29G TIJE FllIENDSIIIP OF BOOKS. peaceful. Work and repose are not antagonistic; they are each other’s complement. The grandest workings of nature are precisely those which present to us, along with move- ment, the sublimest pictures of tranquility, as the roll of the sea, the circling of the constellations round the pole. Great workers, or those who most largely realize life, are always at rest. They accomplish so much because they have learned the secret of tranquility. Free from those conten- tions of spirit which most men allow to distract them from the true ends and prerogatives of life, the tranquil find the time and the opportunity which the mass of mankind so loudly complain that they have not. Like the calm-flowing river, they reflect every tree and cloud, while the brawling and troubled stream shows not a single picture. It is the tranquil who truly inherit the earth.” 175. Good books, like nature, at once alleviate care, re- press the insurgency of evil passions, and encourage and animate the amiable. ‘‘When I come into my library,” said Heinsius, “ in the very lap of eternity, amidst so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and such sweet content, that I pity all those great and rich who know not this happiness.” “ These friends of mine,” writes Pe- trarch, “ regard the pleasures of the world as the supreme good. They are ignorant of my resources. I have friends, whose society is delightful to me ; persons of all countries and all ages, distinguished in war, in council, and in letters. Easy to live with, always at my command, they come at my call, and return when I desire them ; they are never out of Imnior, and they answer all my questions with readiness. Some present before me, in review, the events of past ages ; otliers reveal to me the secrets of nature ; these teach me how to live, and tliose how to die; tliese dispel my melan- choly by their mirth, and amuse me by their sallies of wit, and some there are who prepare my soul to suffer everything, FINE OLD BOYS. 297 to desire nothing, and to become thoroughly acquainted with itself. As a reward of such services, they require only a corner of my little house, where they may be safely shel- tered from the depredations of their enemies.” But to enjoy such friends, which is to enjoy literature, we must, as in order to love nature permanently, begin early. He who would long remain a naan, must early begin to be one. Whatever affluence of intellect we may enjoy in riper life, we owe not so much to the acquisitions purely of manhood, as to the successively renewed and re-invigorated impressions of boyhood. Growing up with such dispositions, old age itself lives in serene enthusiasm, and like the old man in Chaucer, who had nothing hoar about him but his locks, is adolescent to the last. Though I be hoar, I fare as doth a tree That blosmeth ere the fruit y-woxen be ; The blosmy tree is neither drie ne ded ; I feel me nowhere hoar but on my hed ; Mine harte and all my limmes ben as green As laurel through the year is for to seen. To carry, as somewhere remarked by Coleridge, the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood, to combine the child’s sense of wonder and novelty with sights and experi- ences which every day for perhaps half a century has ren- dered familiar — and to which achievement wise mental culture alone is needful — is assuredly, after virtue, the greatest triumph of life. We often hear of fine hoys. The finest of all boys is the fine old boy, he who has obeyed the poet’s great command, Keep true to the dream of your youth. CHAPTER XVII. THE JtELIGIOUS ELE3IENT OF FIFE, 176. While the axiom that ^‘Life is Love” verifies itself in the manner set forth, there is involved in it another and yet higher truth. Love is a word of many different senses. Lowest is the physical : the middle one is that wherein it denotes the ruling desire of a man, the disposition of the will which is predominant with him, and which may or may not be in concord with the intellect: highest is the sense wherein it denotes the energy, in a happy and beautiful direction, of the entire spiritual nature, or the intellect and affections com- bined. (See page 259.) This last thus applies to and denotes the religious state of the soul, which is the blossoming of our humanity, and of which Love is the essential characteristic. The development and marriage of the intellect and affections is at once the great duty and the blessedness of our being, and thus our highest Life. The perfection of human nature is when these two are conjoined, as man and wife, in even and lovely flow. As a happy marriage is the most perfect and beautiful state of existence that can be attained, as regards the social relations of mankind; so the most perfect and beautiful state of the soul is when the affections delight in what tlie intellect says is right and true; and when the intellect (always referring itself to the Word of God as the standard^, commends what the lieart inclines to. To be so disposed towards each other, is to live in conjugal amity, 298 THE TEUE HUMAN LIFE. 299 which is pure and unchangeable Love, and thus true and perfect Life. Such a state of things is not only the perfection of human nature; it is the only one proper to be designated human nature, and only where it is present is man in his natural state. All lower conditions are unnatursl. It is important to observe this, because people are apt to call the life of savages the natural state of man ; a mode of speaking, unless merely intended to signify ignorance of the arts, utterly inconsistent with all reason and analogy. No one would say that a tree was in its natural state when, through adverse circumstances, it was stunted and barren. Nature is Excellence; anything that is not excellent is want of, or departure from nature. The natural state of the tree is when it is appareled in all the luxuriance of leaf and opu- lence of fruit which it is capable of; and the natural state of man is when the intellect and affections unite before the altar of the law of God, which is to engage in pure and faithful love. If either of these great spiritual powers un- duly predominate, error, and therefore unhappiness, neces- sarily ensues. Apart from the tendency there may arise towards moral wrong, if the heart hold too great power, in- stead of religion there is fanaticism ; if the head be too mas- terful, there is rationalism. Regarded as a being adapted for society, man, it may be added, is in a much more ‘^natu- ral’’ state when he is living civilized in a town than when ignorantly vegetating in the wilderness. The nearest ap- proach to genuine natural life is in reality that which we mistakenly call ‘‘artificiar’ life. 177. Religion is the feeling and exercise of such love, and the primary purpose of all true religious culture is to induce, or rather to renew it; for the spiritual declension which was the loss of Eden was no other than the estrangement of the affections from their affianced partner, and until these be- come reconciled, the heavenly garden cannot be re-entered. 800 FAITH AND WORKS. The end of religious culture is threefold ; namely, to recon- cile man to God, to reconcile him to nature, to reconcile him to himself. The first is the final and crowning object, but the last is its indispensable ground-work. The practical beginning must always be made in man's own bosom, and the sign and certificate of the truthfulness and efficacy of a given system of religious culture, is the degree in which this lovely harmony is reestablished. There is no religion which can be referred exclusively to the heart, and none which comes solely from the head. There is none which is only Faith, and none which is only Works. However grand and profound the perceptions of the understanding, if the heart be indisposed to carry them out, still there is no religion. Neither is there any if the intellect have nothing to proffer to the affections, or only what is unworthy. For in the one case, instead of love, there is variance; and in the other, though there is a bride, there is no husband ; or if the ideas be selfish and sensual, a husband with whom true love can- not grow up. Man cannot be virtuous in his heart, if he do not know in his head what virtue is; we cannot love that which we are ignorant of This takes us to another great truth ; namely, that as there is no virtue unconnected with God, or underived from him, or intelligible except by refer- ence to him, a right intellectual conception of God is the very foundation of true religion, and thence of all genuine life. How grateful should we be that no conception is more readily accessible! We have but to think of the examples set by Him ‘‘in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily." Striving to imitate these examples, makes the diflerence between religion rightly so called, and mere men- tal ac(.iuiescence in a particular scheme of religious doctrine. Iteligion is to live a doctrine, not simply to believe in one; and the best doctrine a man can live is the life of Christ, He who most practises this, is the most truly religious. It THEORY AND PRACTICE. 301 does not follow that defective knowledge of God, or a wrong intellectual conception of him, is a man’s destruction. Men are not saved or lost by what they think, but by what they do. The essence of religion is a God-fearing and devotional spirit, and no man is rejected who acts faithfully and sin- cerely up to that which he has been taught to believe true. He who can pray, honestly and silently, and feel his prayers answered, is no stranger to the heavenly fold, however im- perfect and erroneous may be his ideas. The peculiar cha- racteristic of the intelligent religious man is, that he is continually aspiring after a larger knowledge of his God. A true Christian is never satisfied until he knows his Maker and Saviour more accurately than any object of his senses. Unpossessed of religious life, man only half lives. No mat- ter what intelligence, and learning, and love of nature there may be, no matter what health of body, what aptitude for pleasures of sense, what money and opportunity wherewith to procure them; wanting the true, high life of the soul, existence is but sapless and inanimate, and all things no more than what the poet calls the imaginary wife of the bachelor, Ttapay'/Ahajm., ‘‘a cold armful.”* With it, science, literature, love of nature, as we have seen, make our experience long and beautiful, but there are hours when all are vanity, and wretched is he who then has no higher solace to take refuge in. Looking on how much some men f 08868 % — some in the material world, some in the intellectual — we are often inclined to envy them. Could we look into their hearts, and see how little of their property they enjoy, for Avant of this life, when the sorrows of our mortal pil- grimage come thick and heavy, we should be more disposed to pity them. All wisdom and philosophy resolve into this (me simple principle, that the happiness of intelligent crea- 26 * Lycophron. Cassandra, 113. 302 TRUE IDEA OF RELTOIOUS SECTS. tures depends upon the development of their moral and religious nature. 178. These two classes of the religious, namely, those with whom Life or Love is upj)ermost, and those with whom Belief, are the only real sects or parties of the religious world. Other diflerences are but superficial and temporal. Every church and denomination has its proportion of them ; every man is eitlier an amo or a credo, and society suffers or prospers according as the credos or the amos hold most power. In the amos chiefly originate measures of social reform and improvement. From tlie credos come most part of the discouragements and obstructions wliich they meet with ; for the credos think that tlieir creed is the incarnation and consolidation of all possible truth, and that reforms'’ are only disguised attacks upon it. Hence they are prone also to condemn all rival corporations of credos, and to work diligently at procuring proselytes to their own. The amos, on the other hand, as they make religion to consist in good- ness and love, care little to quarrel about dogmas ; they try rather to promote peace and happiness. They believe, nevertheless, and quite as reverently and firmly as the credos do ; the difference is that the amos use their belief as a means, while the credos stand still in it as a finality. The credos, in like manner, also love, but for the most part their affection is all ‘‘ given to heaven," wherein they find excuse for loving nobody on earth. Church and chapel they visit punctually, but the fatherless and the widow they care little to interfere with : these come to the province of the amos. Hence, until we know pretty certainly whether a man is an amo or a credo, in regard to the sect he is identified with, the mere nmne of his sect supplies not the least clue to his religious (piality. Unitarians are just as likely to be amos as High Churchmen who fight duels, live luxuriously and wantonly, and heap up treasures, not for heaven. Quite as WORLDLY PLEASURES AND RELIGION. 303 likely to be merely credos are those who rant and stamp, and have spiritual hysterics, proclaiming their conversion, and its day and hour, as if that could be efiected in a mo- ment which is coextensive and concurrent with one’s whole life. From the mere holding of a doctrine, in short, little can be predicated, nor are the names of the doctrines them- selves truly descriptive. ‘‘ Tell me a man’s creed and I know where to look for him, but I have still to inquire what are his morals. Tell me, on the other hand, that he is a man of justice, charity, and love, and I have no occasion to ask whether he be religious.” The credo, as to his mental character, is well described by Morris. It is possible,” he says, to be delighted with a doctrine, and yet have no just conception of its practical bearings ; to revel in the thought of a blessing, and yet not discern its force as a moral mo- tive ; to have an intense admiration of the principles of equity and love, and yet be a stranger to both the theory and the practice of them in the varied relations of life and the world.” (Religion and Business, p. 6.) The highest idea of the religious man is plainly that which is sought after by the amos. A true reverence of divine sanctities proves itself by an equal reverence of human sanctities. 179. Men often suppose, that to rise into the religious life, it is necessary that they shall withdraw from intercourse with the world of secular things. IN^ot so. It is realized better in society than in the hermitage; and the world, in- stead of being closed as a scene of pleasure, acquires new interest and value; it manifests power even to amend us. ‘MJse the world,” is the doctrine of purity. To forsake it, is ungrateful to God and prejudicial to our best interests. The truly religious man cannot see how it is a proof of piety to emasculate his natural instincts. He knows how to be both “merry and wise,” and that it is religious to be so. Those who make destruction of the common affections of our 304 worldly pleasures and religion. nature the condition of rising to God, confound use with abuse, will with wilfulness. The value and importance of the sensuous life are such as it is almost impossible to over- rate. The evil consists in staying in it, or rather in neglect- ing to engraft upon it a higher life. There is nothing in the spirit of religion hostile to cheerful enjoyment of the world. Dissipation and unlawful pleasures unquestionably it pro- hibits, and also that unlawful degree of attachment to plea- sures in themselves pure and innocent which withdraws the attention from the fulfillment of duty. But it never seeks to forbid pleasure, or to demand the renunciation of anything that it is of real advantage to us to possess, however intensely secular. Pleasure in every form, is good in itself It is the sweet allurement with which God, the all-wise, and the all- good, surrounds useful things and needful acts, in order that we may seek and perform them. It is not pleasure which corrupts men, but men who corrupt pleasuiie; rightly re- garded, it leads men, not away from God and religion, but toivards them ; resembling, in this respect, the sun and stars, which never tempted and diverted men to that idolatry we read of, but began to be worshiped only when men were idolaters already. In becoming religious, in fact, so far from losing anything, we gain, and often where least ex- pected. Nature, art, science, poetry, music, shape a very different experience to the religious and to the non-religious. No man can perceive their more excellent beauties unless he give his heart to what is beautiful morally. As light and heat come together in the sunbeam, so, as a law, do elevated intellectual perceptions connect themselves with virtue of desire and deed. Ubi charitas, ibi claritas, ‘‘Blessed are tlie pure in heart, for they shall see God,’’ is a promise ap- plying to this world no less than to the next; for to “see” God, is to be sensible of His immediate presence, and this depends on no outward change, no shifting in time and KELIGION THE GREAT ILLUMINATOR. 305 place, but on adaptation of one’s heart. So with the glorious promise of the new heaven and the new earth. Whatever kind of cosmological fulfillment it may be intended to have, and whatever deep spiritual meanings may be enclosed in it, it is a promise realized by every man who looks forth upon the universe with the eyes and heart of religion. When in the 65th chapter of Isaiah, our Lord says in refer- ence to his advent to those who seek him, — ‘‘I create new heavens and a new earth,” he means, as the event proves, not that he literally reconstructs the world and sky, but that by filling the soul with his divine love, it sees every- thing after a more admirable manner. If, therefore, a man would read creation in its fullness, — if he would thoroughly appreciate what nature and art have to offer, his best prepa- ration is observance of the precepts of faith to God and charity to the neighbor. ‘^To know nature, thou must be true to nature. To be true to nature, thou must live look- ing forever to the mighty Spirit who presides.”* Nature has been well said to have an exhaustless meaning; but it is a meaning to be rightly seen and heard only by him who strives, ceaselessly and prayerfully, to become all that the Divine image and likeness is capable of becoming, which is, in fact, to become human and religious. Human nature is like a microscope; every step in its regeneration is an addi- tional lens, enabling us to see more beautifully and pro- foundly. “As we become more truly human,” says an ami- able writer, “the world becomes to us more truly divine. Light from heaven must beam upon the world within, be- fore the outward works of God will appear in the perfection of beauty. It is only when reason has acquired motive to look beyond outward sight, and is enabled to dwell on a brighter futurity, that the present world becomes fully sig- * Panthea, or the Spirit of Nature, by Robert Hunt, p. 24. 26 306 BEAUTY OF VIRTUE. nificant.’’* Religion is the green mountain-slope which commands the incomparable view. Blessed are they who find it. As the light we admire on the discs of the moon and planets is not their own, but the sun’s, so the beauty of outward nature is from heaven through humanity. Form can only be duly estimated when w’e are capable of sympa- thizing with tlie spirit: no man can go further than his own measure; the small and weak therefore no further than the small and weak: only from the height of our own nature can we see the height of others^ nature, or of the world’s; some men see no beauty in the Venus. To be a physiogno- mist therefore, in regard either to the face of nature or the face of man, needs first that we be great-souled ; else we can- not possibly compass the greatness of that we contemplate. No bad, conceited, or affected man can ever be a physiogno- ' mist; Nature and the soul are things altogether beyond his grasp. The whole matter is contained in the ancient canon that every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit which sent it forth ; — a canon so essentially fundamental in philosophy, that every fresh acknowledgment seems an un- conscious echo of those before. “In order,” says Plotinus, “ to direct the view aright, it behooves that the beholder shall make himself congenerous and similar to the object beheld. Never could the eye have beheld the sun, had not its own es- sence been soliform {i. e. pre-con figured to light by a similarity of essence with that of light) ; neither can a soul not beauti- ful attain to an understanding of beauty;”f What but an expansion of this, is that delicious little book, The Ministry of the Beautiful “The thickest night cannot veil the * The use of the Body in relation to the Mind, by Dr. MooTre, p. 102. f Enncad 1, Book 0, “Of the Beautiful.” (Page 57, F G. Ed. Ficini.) t By n. J. Slack. 1852. A PUKE HEART THE HISCEKNER OF BEAUTY. 307 beauty and mystery of nature one-tenth part so efiectually as a low moral state. Divinest forms in vain present them- selves to eyes whose mechanism communicates wuth no re- cipient soul. Beauty without is the reflection of love and obedience within. To the true worshiper nature exhibits beauty and sublimity, where to the irreverent is barrenness and vacuity. Two men may live on the same spot, one dwelling in an Eden garden, sparkling with fountains, odorous with the loveliest flowers, full of celestial sounds, while the other is in a desert, the abode of uncleanness and desolation. In proportion as a man developes beauty within, does he find it without.’’ Emerson follows in words of gold: — ‘‘The problem,” says he, “of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty, is solved by the redemption of the soul. The ruin or the blank that we see in nature is in our own eye. The axis of vision is not coincident with the axis of things, and so they appear not transparent, but opaque. The reason why the world lacks unity is, that man is disunited from himself. A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her text, so that the world shall be to us an open book, and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause.” Thus eloquently and variedly is it testified that in the degree that we become sensible of the charms of virtue, our hearts open to the true seeing of those that are physical ; in other words, that a man’s opinion of the world is always in pro- portion to his own comeliness. All who do see the world from such a stand-point are Poets. To become virtuous is to open the eyes to poetic sights ; and conversely, before a man can be a poet, or at all events, a true and great poet, ne must have a loving and religious heart.* An immoral Almost a truism, from the variety of authors in wliich tliis idea may be found expressed ; its earliest occurrence appears to be in 308 RELIGIOUS LIFE AND SECULAR LIFE. genius is no genius, simply a man of talent. Such an one was Lord Byron. Shakspere, on the other hand, was of the highest moral purity, therefore capable of all the func- tions and rewards of poetry in the completcst signification of the word. ‘‘The profundity and simplicity of his poeti- cal view of life,” as Ulrici finely remarks, “was simply on this account sublime and profound, because it was Christian, and Christian also, even because it was sublime and j)ro- found.”* Not that Poetry and Religion are in any way synonymous or convertible. Delighting “to sit under the boughs of poetry, and to be washed by the surging waves of music,” religion still carefully distinguishes itself from them. The one implies faith in a Saviour, the other simply love for a Creator. 180. To realize these things, it is not necessary that a man should be always thinking about what is spiritual and reli- gious, any more than that he should quit the world of sen- suous enjoyment. Doing so, he could not properly address himself to the details of his secular duties ; but he should always have his mind governed by what is religious. Reli- gion does not consist in forever busying one’s self with reli- gious ideas, in season and out of season ; but in letting our knowledge of what is right, color and ensoul whatever we do. Unhappily, in many minds, it has been made to con- sist too much in the performance of certain ceremonies, acknowledging God at stated hours, speaking on given sub- jects in a certain way; to be, in a word, not what in its Strabo, about the middle of his first book. (P. 17, Ed. Cassaubon, 1G20.) * Shakspere’s Dramatic Art, and his relation to Calderon and Goethe, j). x. See also p. 118. Tliose foolish people who are better able to see ignorance and iriij)icty in Shakspere, than wisdom and virtue, are i)rovided in the pages which follow, with the completest explanations to be desired. LIFE IN ITS BEST SENSE. 309 purity it really is — a temper, but a pursuit The consequence is that to a great extent it is shut up in the church at the close of service, and left there till Sunday comes round again. The weeh-d^y^ are the true periods for religious action, which, rightly understood, is doing as we would be done by, and performing acts of Christian usefulness ; while Sunday, in the proper idea of it, is a day for receiving and communicating specific instruction in sacred things, and joining with our brethren in the externals of ritual worship. If it be possible to carry pride, selfishness, avarice, cheerful- ness, diligence, into the execution of our daily work, it is quite as competent to us to carry into it a religious spirit, without which, in fact, religious action is merely show\ Two things are greatly to be distrusted in regard to religion — an inactive profession, and rigor and multitude of ceremonials, which latter, with the truly religious, are nevertheless ob- served, and even more sedulously, only with this distinction, that they are without advertisement to the world. “ True religion,’’ as Charles Lamb tells us, prescribes a kind of grace, not only before meals, but before setting out for a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a pleasant meet- ing ; a grace before reading any author that delights us.”* 181. Being the highest kind of life, the Religious is that to which Scripture chiefly alludes. Jesus, in particular, rarely speaks of man’s animal, organic life; he concerns himself with what vitalizes the soul, and introduces it to immortality in heaven. When life in the sense of the future state is referred to in the Bible, it always implies antecedent religious life on earth ; necessarily so, because no man can live in heaven who has not first lived religiously here. Religion is a marriage in the soul, and in heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. It mu^ * Elia, Grace before Meat.’ 310 SCRIPTURAL MEANINGS OF THE WORD ‘‘LIFE.” be consummated in this life, if at all. No one who is ac- customed to peruse the Word of God attentively is a stranger to these things. For completeness^ sake some few illustrations may nevertheless be adduced, i. e., of the word “life,” as used in its sense of the religious. “ He that hath the Son, hath life; and he that hath not the Son, hath not life.” “Keep my commandments and live^ “He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth “ To be car- nally-minded is death, but to be spiritually-minded is //Je.” “ In the pathway of righteousnesss is life; in the pathway thereof there is no death.” The same is meant in all such expressions as “ enter into lifef “ light of Ufef “ word of lifef^ “ bread of life ;” where it is plain that something is intended far higher, far more transcendental, than can be identified or connected with mere animal, temporal vitality. Every such passage must of course be interpreted on its own basis and by its own context ; to read them aright, however, we should act on the admirable maxim of Bishop Heber, that the best means of understanding any single passage of Scripture is to acquire an intimate and long acquaintance with the whole of the sacred volume. It is instructive to observe that the terms used to denote life in the original languages of the Bible, announce on the very face of the matter, that different ideas of it are intended. Thus, in the New Testament, while the animal, temporal life is called the religious life, both as enjoyed here and as con- tinued hereafter, is distinguished, almost uniformly as Ccorj. Those who are interested in the Scriptural usages of the word life, will do well to consult a fine old volume, curiously and immensely learned, by Kichard Brocklesby — “An Ex- plication of the Gospel Theism, and the Divinity of the Christian Religion,” Book iv. chap. 10, sect. 12, pp. 975 — • 993. (1706.) CHAPTER XVIIL JjlFB MEAZIZEJ) BT ACTIVITY— ACTION TELE LAW OF IIAFFINESS. 182. As the operations and phenomena of physical life resolve universally into Motion, so do those of the spiritual life into Activity. The reason is that the soul, like the body, and nature universally, is a subject of continual change, and depends upon its changes for all its energy and pleasures. Like the body again, it acts both secretly within itself, and externally, upon what environs it. The exter- nalized activities are fulfillments of the inner, and are possi- ble only as effects of them ; the secret or interior ones form that sleepless life of desire, memory, and imagination, which gives so beautiful an assurance that we are immortal. Whatever we may seem to ourselves to be, we are never in reality unoccupied ; the thinking powers and the affections may appear to be at rest, we may be quite unconscious that they are otherwise, but they never cease from action alto- gether ; the spiritual heart, like the physical, is in ceaseless throb. That which we commonly call activity is thus only pictorial, and but a part of what we effect ; the essential transpires beneath, in the silent chambers of the soul, and so restlessly that no exertion of body can ever set forth the half of it. To think is virtually to act ; so are to love, to hope, to muse. Men are not to be considered idle because we do not see them incessantly working with their hands. That idleness exists there is no doubt, and that not a little 311 312 REVERIE. of it is utterly shameful ; but we should be cautious how we charge idleness upon any man too hastily, for it often hap- pens that the idlest to appearance are precisely those who work the hardest. Before a man is set down as idle, it should be asked what is his aptitude for seeing ; for never since the world began, did an indolent heart and mind dwell in the same body with open eyes. The truly idle man is the selfish and unintellectual one, “spinning on his own axis in the dark.’’ Still, it is by the vigor and effectiveness with which this essential activity of the soul is played forth into the world around that it is to be estimated ; and unless we see signs and tokens of it in the shape of deeds, we are justified in slowness of acknowledgment. In fact, it be- comes real only by impersonation into deed, for until thought and affection utter themselves on society, they are only inutile visions. As a man’s health and strength are not determined by the bare circumstance of our knowledge that his blood is circulating, but by the energy with which we see him use his limbs and organs generally ; so the life of the soul is to be judged of, not by its invisible dreamings, but by its outward, sensible manifestations. Reverie, though most wholesome services are sometimes wrought by it, is but the pliyllomania or running to leaf of the soul ; the exclusively right purpose of spiritual life is the blossom and fruit of external act. “By their fruits shall ye know them.” We tell what a man ^s, or as it is well-phrased, what he is “ made of,” by what he does; not, however, by what he does once, or occasionally, fine as the deed may be, but by what he continues to do, and persists in doing, spite of all hin- drances. Cleverness, parts, talent, so called, can be taken no account of till they come out. A man of mere “ capa- city undeveloped,” as Emerson says, “is only an “organized day-dream with a skin on it.” Genius itself is no genius if it stay in-doors. “ Genius unexerted is no more genius than ACTION AND ENJOYMENT. 313 a bushel of acorns in a forest of oaks. There may be epics in men’s brains, just as there are oaks in acorns, but the tree and the book must come out before we can measure them.” A thing of names and definitions innumerable, Ge- nius, whatever its particular attitude or features, is the high- est development of the energy of the soul ; its certificate and office, as with the great function of the body which corre- sponds to it, or the procreation of offspring, which is the highest development of physical energy, is that it again im- parts life; but until life has sprung up under its mighty impulse, till we feel the world the richer for it, to call it ge- nius is ridiculous and false. Genius is known by its acti- vity; dumb and unprolific genius are but appellations of the want of it. Let none, then, stand still in the supposition that because the soul works, and works diligently, of its own accord, a lofty spiritual life will necessarily be present ; no- thing is vital and substantial till it be ultimated into body or performance. So completely is action identified with life, that it is the natural metaphor for its lapse and progress. Agere, to act, is used by Tacitus for to live and to say that a person has lived thirty years, is the same as saying that he has acted thirty years. 183. That which is the truest sign of a thing is always its chief ornament and blessedness. Life, accordingly, is a delight just in the degree that it is consecrated to Action, or the conscious, volitional exercise of our noblest capabili- ties. Action and enjoyment are contingent upon each other; when we are unfit for work we are always incapable of pleasure ; work is the wooing by which happiness is won. The exercise even of our most ordinary bodily functions is a source of pleasure — breathing, for example. If not directly recognized as such, it is simply because of its unin- terruptedness, beautifully illustrating that in order to the <'.omplete sense of happiness in the soul, there must be corv- 27 0 314 ACTION AND ENJOYMENT. sciousness of being employed. All physical pleasures depend for the maximum of their delightfulness, on continual cessa- tion and recurrence, often on slight movements and undu- lations, just sufficient to give keener edge to their renewal in the next instant ; similarly, but in a far higher degree, all our spiritual, or mental and emotional pleasures, come of constant action, unceasingly recapitulated. So inseparably connected are the ideas of action and enjoyment, that when- ever in nature we behold free movement, it awakens agree- able emotions; when, for example, in the calm air of a summer’s evening we watch the insects weaving their mazy dances, we exclaim instinctively, how happy they are ! In many languages, happiness and fruitfulness, both of them results and indications of activity, are denoted by the same word, as when the Latin poet calls the apple tree felix, the unproductive wild olive infelix oleaster. The proximate cause of this great interdependence is that man is a creature of unbounded Wants. It is Want that spurs us on to activity, in order that we may satisfy the want; were it possible for us to appease all wants as fast as they arise, we should be the most miserable and forlorn of beings. This is why we find such keener pleasure in the chase of an object than in the capture of it; why possession satisfies only in the degree that it is a new" beginning. It is not., says Helvetius, in the having acquired a fortune, but in the acquiring it ; not in having no wants, but in satisfying them ; not in having been prosperous, but in prosperity, that hap- piness essentially consists. The miser grows old enjoying rather than w^earied of life ; the heir who comes into posses- sion of his hoard dies of ennui ; — unless he know beforehand, it should be added, wherein the advantage of wealth mainly consists, namely, in the power which it gives to an intelligent possessor to diversify and dignify his pursuits, and thus to multiply and ennoble his emotions, or practically, his wants. IDLENESS AND INFELICITY. 315 184. In order that good and honorable wants shall always require a certain amount of exertion to appease them, and thus that our zeal shall be kept burning, all those things which humanity most needs are by a wise and benevolent Providence made the most difficult to procure. The silver is hidden and the gold is buried ; every gift of the field requires man’s cooperation before he can enjoy it; every truth, even of the most universal interest and the most practical tendency, has to be patiently and perseveringly inquired for. Nothing in the world that is worth having is gratis ; everything has to be met half-way between God and ourselves; and the more our experience of Divine Provi- dence enlarges, the more deeply do we feel how beneficent is the ordinance that it should be so ; how inglorious and nega- tive would be our destiny were there nothing left for us to effect as of ourselves. ‘‘Ask, and ye shall have,” is equally true in its reverse ; neglect to ask, and ye shall not have. Whatever God’s awaiting privileges, everywhere the law is that they must be sought. Directly a tree neglects to assert its arboreity, it ceases to be a tree, and lapses into mould. Directly that a man falls into idleness and inactivity of soul, ceasing thereby from the true exercise of his human nature, he sinks into infelicity and animalism. A very simple formula comprises the whole matter ; the re-action of man in response to the primary action of God, constitutes the vast blessedness it is to Live. “ Did the Almighty,” says Lessing, “ holding in his right hand Truth, and in his left Search after Truth, deign to proffer me the one I should prefer, in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request Search after Truth.” The most blessed of men is he who, working with his own hands for his daily bread, reaps delight from the exercise of his intelligence upon his toils, and feels a holy harmony between the munificence of God and the duties which pertain to himself. The dream 316 ACTION AND CHEERFULNESS. of an existence perennially workful, and yet sweet, free and poetic, such as has visited men in every age, is not so vision- ary as they have fancied, but it rests with the dreamer to clothe it in reality. 185. Without action there can be no cheerfulness — the prime need as well as token of a true and happy life. Doubtless there is a native, spontaneous cheerfulness of spirit, but that which keeps cheerfulness alive is nothing else than activity, sedulously addressed to some worthy end. This is a secret worth knowing, since without cheerfulness neither the intellect nor the affections can expand to their full growth, which is for life never to reach its proper alti- tude ; while nothing is more surely fatal to it than gloom, moroseness, and discontent, unless it be the petty envyings, jealousies, and suspicions, the toadstools of the human heart, which sprout from the same foul soil, or indolent inactivity. Who are the people most generally given to talking scandal? Those who for want of some enlivening occupation become peevish and impatient, and know little or nothing about cheerfulness. Having nothing to agreeably engage the mind, the temptation to assume the office of censor over their neighbors is too strong to resist, the whole heart be- comes tainted and purulent, and the very occupations that make others lively become an eye-sore. Every one has noticed the cheerfulness which comes of a little bustle in which all parties are concerned; how ill-tempers subside, and crossest faces become bland. A result as much more solid and graceful as the instrumentality is nobler, infallibly follows regular and solid devotion of the soul to aims that demand its best imaginings. The beginning of idleness is an ignoble ruling love. The wants which come of such a love are few and soon satisfied, since that which is lowest is always easiest to reach, and hence it is incessantly left des- titute. Nothing so effectually prevents idleness as a noble ENNUI 31 ? sympathy. The indolent rich, who fancy themselves weak and invalided when they are simply stagnant for want of a great purpose, would become sprightly and well directly, did they but enter on some genial and generous love, which would impel them into varied occupations. The very rest- lessness which frets them shows that action is the soul of life. Do something they must; this is a necessity they can- not evade, for absolute inactivity is impossible: it is nature’s law that employment shall go on with every one in some sort; but in the degree that the inevitable something is mean and indeterminate, the end of the^pursuit is mortifying and vain. God knows the means to make us work soberly and usefully. Do you see any one at a loss how to spend his time, undecided where to go, walking through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none? Be assured that individual finds existence a burden, and is a total stranger to its bloom and true emoluments. Many sights are melancholy, but none are worse than the listless, jaded countenances of those who have nothing worthy to devote their energies to. Yet these faces could beani with intelligence. Every man is happy by birth-right. It is his power to be happy that makes him able to be miserable; the capacity for ennui being, in fact, one of the signatures of his immortality. Why brutes never suffer ennui is simply because they are inca- pable of noble delights. How inexcusable it is, if not shameful and disgraceful, to have nothing but what is low and transitory to think about, and thus to fall into such a state of dullness, scarcely needs an observation. Were the world empty, were it a silent, barren waste, without a tree or a blade of grass, there might possibly be an excuse; but overflowing as it does with the most beautiful curiosities, nothing is so utterly indefensible as to let a single waking hour die blank. Thanks be to God, as soon as a man de- sires to seek, he is always enabled to find; directly he feels 27 318 HOME AMUSEMENTS. his heart and mind swell with a great desire, he finds the woiid ready and waiting to supply him. Even though busily engaged throughout the day in commercial or do- mestic avocations, the dolcefar niente which our poor weari- ness is so apt to plead in the evening, and which no wise man ever refuses to listen to altogethei*, is a principle only to be admitted under the protest that the proper rest for man is change of OG(n.vpo/ion, There are few kinds of busi- ness which fatigue both body and mind at once; while one toils, the other almost necessarily reposes; when the one ceases work, nature rules that the other shall be fittest to begin; and that is a rare case indeed where either body or mind is debarred all opportunity of healthful and useful occupation when its turn to work comes on. Man is not so imperfectly constituted, nor is the world so defectively framed, as for him to be constrained to look for pastime and relaxation anywhere but in change from one improving em- ployment to another; it may be questioned whether the sweetness of Home can ever be truly enjoyed where the lead- ing recreation does not take the shape of some intelligent and pretty pursuit, such as the formation of an herbarium, or the use of the microscope or pencil. Boys would not incessantly be in mischief and trouble were they encouraged to study natural history; girls would be far livelier and companionable, and also enjoy better health, were they trained to fixed habits of mental employment. The delight of a single hour of recreation in art or science, outweighs a whole life-time of mere frivolities; before the picture of this delight, could it be brought home to him, the mere trifler would sink in dismay. Finding our pastime in such pur- suits, we render ourselves independent of the casualties of time and place, and secure an arbor of our own, where none can molest. Accustoming ourselves to live in ideas, sorro\^ and misfortune lose their sting. We discover that though ART OF CONVERSATION. 319 disa]>pointed of our greatest and most cherished hopes, that is no reason why we should he impatient, or unhappy, or no longer given to pleasant wishes and desires. We get to live rather in that same kind of well-tempered hope and content- edness both in one, which leads men to plant trees for the future. “To have always,” says DTsraeli, “some secret, darling idea to which we can have recourse amid the noise and nonsense of the world, and which never fails to touch us in the most exquisite manner, is an art of happiness that fortune cannot deprive us of.” Many things may furnish such an idea; we have shown where they may be found. Nepenthe still grows plentiful and green; the world is full of sweet places where we may rest ourselves, and eat of the lotus. We have no need to court gaiety in order to be happy; nor yet a large circle of acquaintance. Few would longer trouble themselves about mere “diversions,” were they once to feel what it is to possess the art of self-recrea- tion among the untaxed gifts of nature. 186. While our leisure is honored and agreeably occupied by such pursuits, materials are acquired also for that most invaluable of the Fine Arts, the art of Conversation, desti- tute of which, no family or social circle can be thoroughly happy. Not that mere dry scientific facts of themselves can serve its purposes, because the best, most living part of con- versation is emotional, imaginative, bird-like. Moreover, the richest conversation may be and often is wholly inde- pendent of such facts. But where brothers and sisters have each their tale to tell of something curious or interesting seen in the day’s progress, and have a common interest in each other’s discoveries and acquisitions, the imagination soon finds wing, and the heart soon warms. To learn how to talk, let people learn how to do something, and get those about them to do the same. Of all the unbecoming things which true education would seek to anticipate and prevent, 820 IIURTFULNESS OF GOSSIP. that weak gossip about persons and clothes, eating and favx pas, which generally passes current as conversation, is the first that demands to be corrected. With the lover of noble employment, leisure indeed, either for trifling talk, or for trifles of any kind, exists no longer. No one ever wants to ‘‘kill time” who has fixed, intelligent work in hand. He very soon discovers that to kill time is to kill himself. The time-killer, the mere trifler, condemns it in his own looks, for he always seems ashamed. We never find him, like Archimedes, shouting eupi^xa I Such declarations of honorable joy are the privilege of the wisely active in li- beral arts ; no man, says Plutarch, was ever heard to cry out after a luxurious meal, fHl^pcoxa! or after another form of sensual pleasure, Tie^iXrpxa ! Briefly, to make it- self happy is a duty which every created being, in propor- tion to its capacity, owes to itself and to God ; one of the chief characteristics of moral health. Lord Bacon tells us, is a “ constant quick sense of felicity, and a noble satisfac- tion felicity, in its highest signification, implies all that can ennoble, while it excites our minds ; idleness and trifling, though they may excite, can never by any possibi- lity ennoble ; hence are the workers on intelligent pursuits, at once the dutiful to God, the healthy in soul, the happy ones of their race. Si non ingentem, as Virgil says, “ if they have not vestments curiously embroidered with gold, and if for them the white wool is not stained with the Assyrian dye— At secura qiiies, et nescia fallere vita. Dives opum variarum, — “ Yet theirs is peace secure, and a life of solid, unfallacious hap- piness, rich in various opulence.’^ 187. Scientific and artististic recreations, pursued either j)urcly on their own account, or with a view to agreeable PLEASURE AND BUSINESS. 321 intellectual intercourses, by no means demand the intense application that many suppose. Neither is a little know- ledge the dangerous thing which others often fear. The in- firmity is not to have only a little, but to fancy that that little is a great deal. Neither are brilliant talents wanted ; a very moderate capacity will soon carry us out to sea. Nor, again, is there that incongruity between scientific re- creations and the ordinary duties of life which is not infre- quently alleged. “ Business must be attended to,’’ is one of the best and safest maxims in the world ; a man, as Dr. Johnson said, is never more usefully employed than when earning money. There is another maxim, however, fully as important, and founded upon as great a principle, and that is, the intervals of business must be attended to, implying that there is none of the incongruity supposed. No one can sharpen his intellectual faculties, or widen the range of his knowledge, without becoming more skilful and successful in the business or profession in which he is engaged. What- ever tends to cheer the understanding in leisure moments, so far from being in antagonism to business thoughts, is com- plementary to them, and gives them zest. It is doubtful whether any man can heartily enjoy the country who does not spend a large part of every week in town-work ; and no less questionable whether any one so thoroughly enjoys business as he who turns to it as a change. The same prin- ciple applies to literary recreations. How long is the list of men distinguished in commerce, who have also shone in letters, even in literature sparkling with imagination ! The late Mr. Roby, of Rochdale, author of the Traditions of Lancashire, is a memorable example. Mr. Roby, says his biographer, was not inapt for the addition sum of the banker because he delved into legendary lore, or rushed into the realms of the imagination. He showed in his various performances that the poetic temperament is not in antago- 322 PLAY. nism to tlie duties of life ; a truth the sooner recognized the better. Many of our best writers are not professionally so ; they sweeten a life of physical labor by intellectual activity, and society reaps the double harvest. In his ordinary life the author is but an ordinary man, and it is a monstrous ex- aggeration to suppose as many do, that he is always walking with his head among the stars and his feet among the flow- ers. It would not be difficult to show that the man who is engaged during the day in what are commonly called unin- tellectual employments, or in semi-intellectual ones, such as buying, selling, and casting accounts, has a decided advan- tage in his leisure moments, cwteris paribus, over him who has wholly to think, 188. Employment, therefore, does not mean no amuse- ment; the workers, or those who use their time instead of wasting it, have more holidays than any one else, for every change is a going out to play. When rational and unso- phisticated, play, commonly so called, is still work; at all events, no man ever played genially and heartily without gaining something by it, and thus gathering from it a fruition of work. Play, moreover, is perfectly compatible with work ; let no one suppose that art and science disallow it, or that they render play uninteresting and distasteful. Pastime and fun are as great a need as occupation, and as great a luxury. He who refuses to play is but a stately fool; to sport and gambol with children is one of the sweetest lyric songs of life; grown people, however, should remember that as the end of all exertion, even the slightest, should be profit, play should always be based upon an intelligent idea. People, may be mirthful without being silly, just as they may be grave without being gloomy; a mind in right order can descend into frolics as readily as it can soar into magnificent ideas; for it is the characteristic of well-disciplined intelli- gence, and of purity and earnestness of the affections, that USE OF AMUSEMENTS. 323 they are universal in their capacity. It is this which makes the philosopher; the true idea of whom is that of an amia- ble and pious man, who with the profound and scientific combines the lively and the droll. ‘‘My idea of wise men,” says some author, “needs that they shall be very lively: I don’t call dull men wise.” Plato and Aristotle were not always seen in their long robes, dignified and serious. No; they were good-natured fellows, who enjoyed a laugh with their friends like the rest of the world, and who loved, and hoped, and listened to a good story with as much zest as the least learned. “ As much” did we say ? Culture of mind enables us to enjoy far more intensely when enjoyment is afloat than when our heads are ill-provided. Love-poetry owes to Plato a more exquisite stroke of nature than ever was penned by a mere writer of songs and valentines: — “While kissing Agathon, I had my soul upon my lips, for it came, the hapless, as if about to depart.” Many persons, it is true, live without amusement; grave, dull, would-be moralists and sages; and certainly, pastime is not so indis- pensably necessary after the mental and physical constitu- tions have arrived at maturity, as before. It by no means follows, however, that such persons would not live happier and more useful lives if they resorted occasionally to the ordinary sports of mankind. None ever decry play and fun but those who are strangers to their value. The love of them is one of the signs of a great nature. All true genius is in its very essence, a joyous faculty; “wit” originally sig- nifies the very highest efforts of mind. It is only by looking around as well as upwards that a large and just conception of life is attainable, and therefore that life is truly realized. “A mind charged with vitality, and sustained by trust in God, will not only look cheerfully to the goal of its pilgrimage, but have ample stores of gladness to expend upon the journey. The Muses have left no diaries, or doubtless we 324 ACTION THE SOURCE OF POWER. should rind that they had their gipsy-parties and lively games; that they danced and sang for pure enjoyment; and visited mortal dreamers not only in inspiring vision, but sometimes to ‘Tickle men’s noses as they lay asleep.’ ” In a word, though recreation with science and literature be the most solid and unfailing kind of play, it is not the only kind we need. With all his toil, and care, and penury of time, the man who devotes himself to learning, or science, or business, is no gainer in the end, if he do not take part sometimes in lively entertainments. For a while he may seem to suffer nothing; but the belief of his being able to dispense with such playing is only a delusion ; there is a heavy reckoning going on against him, which sooner or later will have to be paid in suffering and premature exhaustion. Work and play are reciprocally advantageous. While without due play, there is no effective working, on the other hand, in order to play heartily with the body, we must learn how to play heartily, in privacy, with the soul. No man thoroughly enjoys play, or knows what play really is, who cannot spend hours of solitude in comfort. 189. In the degree that we employ ourselves, we acquire Power. As nature, ever shifting and transforming, is most beautiful and delicious when it is not strictly either spring, or summer, or autumn, — morning, noon, evening, or night; so, all the potency we ever possess, is referable to our mo- ments of action, or when we are experiencing or effecting Changes ; the period of transition is that in which power is developed ; to acquire and to wield it, we must be forever seeking to quit the state we are in, and to rise into a higher one. Power, accordingly, which is only life under another name, is resolvable, essentially, into constant progression. It never consists in the having been, but always in the AIDS TO MARRIED HAPPINESS. 325 becoming ; we flourish in proportion to our desire to emerge out of To-day. It is often asked concerning a stranger, Where does he come from ? The better question would be, Where is he going to f Never mind the antecedents, if he be now in some shining pathway. Other people are con- tinually heard wishing to be settled.” It may be useful to be settled as to our physical resources ; but to be settled in any other way is the heaviest misfortune that can befall a man, for when settled, he ceases to improve, and is like a ship stranded high and dry upon the sand. Who is the man from whose society and conversation we derive soundest pleasure and instruction ? Not he who, as it is facetiously said, has “ completed his education,” but he who, like a bee, is daily wandering over the fields of thought. The privilege of living and associating with a person who knows how to think, and is not afraid to think, is inestimable ; and no- where is it felt more profoundly than in the intimate com- panionship of wedded life. Rousseau finds in this need a beautiful argument for inspiring one’s beloved, during the sweet, plastic days of betrothal, with a taste for the ameni- ties of nature, such as shall provide a source in after years, of lasting and mutual delight. How pleasing, when many summers of married love have thrown those hallowed days far into the rear, to note again the uncurling ferns of spring, wrapped so comfortably in their curious brown scales ; the pretty scarlet hedge-strawberries gathered for her hand, the delicate mosses, and the hundred other objects then first noticed, objects which set both mind and lips in action, invoking currents of sweet converse, kindling looks from which we turned to the sunshine for relief, and opening the way to long trains of agreeable and profitable contempla- tion, enlarged with every new impulse to mutual tenderness. The being afraid to think is the chief reason perhaps why the majority of people are so disinclined to think — to think, 28 326 TRUE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION. that is, beyond the little circle of their bodily wants. There can be few who are positively imahle to think ; otherwise thought and happiness would not bear the close natural relation which they do. Put a grand idea before tlie gene- rality of people, and it seems to them like looking up a ship’s mast from the deck. Yet it is not that they cannot ascend, using the proper means ; they let themselves be ter- rified away, fancying they are unable, when they are merely self-distrustful. Doubtless there is a difierence in aptitude, but every one may become stronger if he will ; the worst unbelief is unbelief in one’s self; it only needs confidence and a start ; whatever we may get from others, or from the world, has grown from germs such as we have also in our- selves — whence it is that in our reading we are so continu- ally coming up with ideas that we feel to be our own ; nor is there anything more beautiful in creation than each man’s own private soul, when fairly dealt with and elicited. Helen, when she explored nature for a model of a golden cup that she should offer upon the altar of Diana as perfectly beau- tiful, found nothing more exquisite than her own bosom. 190. Practically then — for to bring us to some practical conclusioR is the sole use of such considerations — we learn from the great law of Action the spring of Happiness, that to encourage love of work is the first article of sensible Education. In effect, this is the stimulating of the Intellect and the Affections which has already been adverted to under other heads. All action, to be efficacious for good, must rise into a certain intensity; it must also be regular and determinate, and it is only training and culture that can make it so. As in the structure of plants and animals, where any organ is deficient, or there is departure from symmetry, it is uniformly referable to a weakening of the vital energies, or to restraint or diversion of them away from their proper office ; so when our experience of life is WORK. 327 infelicitous and unrewarding, it is because the natural activity of the soul has either been repressed, or neglected, or turned astray in early youth. The unhappy are those “who from want of practice cannot manage their thoughts, who have few to select from, and who, because of their sloth or weakness, do not roll away the heaviest,” and these are precisely the individuals whom observation would per- ceive to be laboring under imperfect discipline of the spiritual activities, dating from the very commencement of education. Ordinarily, to the young, work is rendered so unattractive, and the idea of pleasure so entirely dissevered from it, that the first wears the semblance of a penalty, and the latter of the true object of existence. This is to com- pletely neutralize the design of work, and to despoil life of its highest luxuries. Pleasure is not bestowed on us to be made a motive; still less is it to be deemed, as by many, a right of human existence, and its non-arrival an exhibition of Divine injustice. What we ought to let reign in our minds, is primarily, work, which translates itself, in every true soul, into the duty of development. Let the prseludia of stem and foliage be made the business, and the fiowers will come of their own accord, and fill the air with fragrance. “ In teaching,” says the good Jean Paul, “ accustom the boy to regard his future, not as a path from pleasures, though innocent, to other pleasures ; nor even as a gleaning, from spring-time to harvest, of flowers and fruits ; but as a time in which he must execute some long plan ; let him aim at a long course of activity — not of pleasure.” Then he shows how privileged is such a course : “ That man is happy, for instance, who devotes his life to the cultivation of an island, to the discovery of one that is lost, or to the extent of the ocean. I would rather be the court-gardener who watches and protects an aloe for fifteen years, until at last it opens to him the heaven of its blossom, than the prince who is 32S WORK AND BODILY HEALTH. hastily called to look at the opened heaven. Tlie writer of a dictionary rises every morning, like the sun, to move pjist some little star in his zodiac ; a new letter is to him a new year’s festival, the conclusion of an old one a harvest-home.’’ Bodily health, as well as spiritual, depends on work. Very many of the complaints so frequently heard from the deli- cate young women of our day, as want of vigor, inability to bear exposure, deficiency of strength to walk far, may be traced to other and earlier causes than supposed, settling at last into absence of well-trained mental power, such as would seek an outlet in useful and agreeable occupation. But mental power, let them understand, is not to be gained from senseless fiction y which leading, as it is almost sure to do in the end, to discontented dreams of what might have been, or should be, keeps the heart away from thankful per- ception and enjoyment of what is; it is to be got from no such miserable waste of time as this ; but from steady and well-directed reading of stories not fictitious, and from steady and systematic contemplation of the works of nature. Seeking to improve themselves as intelligent beings, our young ladies would not half as often want the doctor. Rational work they would find, moreover, less fatiguing than the very pastimes which they fancy true enjoyment. Under proper management, work never becomes irksome. When prematurely fatigued, it is not the action that has tired us, but want of ingenious and orderly methods. W ork never killed or hurt any man who knew how to go about it. See what order there is in nature ! Along with sublimest activity, what smoothness and ease ! How still the growth of the plant, yet how rapid ! How peacefully the stars of midnight seem encamped ; yet before morning whole armies have disappeared ! So much is achieved, because every- thing is done in order, at the right time, intently, yet de- liberately, and the minutes never wasted in indecision. In WORK IN THE FUTURE STATE. 329 work, then, consists the true pride of life. Grounded in active employment, though early ardor may abate, it never degenerates into indifference; and age, as we have said before, lives in perennial youth. Life is a weariness only to the idle, or where the soul is empty, and better than to exist thus vacantly, is it for longevity as to birth-days to be denied. 191. The consideration of this great principle. Action the spring of Happiness, though it is in regard to the present life that it practically concerns us, belongs as largely to right estimates of the life to come. Doubtless, the means by which we secure enjoyment upon earth, instruct us as to the proximate source of the enjoyments that will be felt in heaven, a subject that cannot be uninteresting to any man who reflects for a moment how long he hopes to live there. That the same re-action of man, in response to the primary action of God, which here makes life and happiness, will similarly engender it hereafter, we may gather, indeed, most plainly,, from the divine oracles themselves. When we are told so consolingly, that to die is to go to rest, and that ‘‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors,’^ it is not meant that by entering the future state we enter on a state of passiveness. There can be no happiness or holiness, even in heaven, if the life be one of mere quiescence. Do we not see, even in this world, that those who would have us understand by Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, Remember to keep it idle, i. e., idle as regards everything but religious discipline; do we not see, even in this world, that they prescribe a course against which all nature rebels, and which fails from its very absurdity? How much more impossible will it be to keep holy the everlasting sabbath, except by supplementing its peculiar duties of praise and worship with useful and bene- volent occupations. The labors which will be “rested from^^ 28 ■* # 3.W GOD THE GREAT WORKER. are the resistance of temptations, the endurance of trials, the struggles with evil, which incessantly harass our tem- poral existence; all our chosen and happier activities will continue, in a more glorious manner, and with the perfect results which on earth are unattainable. The best and wisest of mankind have always had a conviction that it will be so. ‘‘He felt,” says the memoir of Dr. Gordon, “that there would be no interval of unconsciousness, no ces- sation of activity, no intermission of enjoyment; that though the mode of existence would be changed, the existence itself would be neither destroyed nor suspended.”* We may learn much from the very term that Scripture employs. It is never said that we shall rest from our work, only from “labor.” Labor is that exertion which is irksome and painful ; work that which is congenial, welcome, a delightful exercise. Labor is the toil of the soul and body upon things in opposition to them; work is the bestowal of their best energies on what pleases and recompenses. Work, rightly understood, is divine, and nothing that is divine can ever cease. It is divine because it comes out of the inmost spirit of goodness and love, and thus, primarily, from God, whereas indolence and laziness come of the very essence of evil. Who is the greatest workman in the universe? He who works, from out of His infinite Love, for the smallest insect as well as the immortal angel. That the wicked are often diligent, more diligent, possibly, than many of the good, is no objection; because the diligence of such does not come of their evil, as to its own intrinsic nature, but of its necessities; work must be done in order that the means may be procured whereby the appetites of the evil shall be indulged. The idea of an idle heaven is a very low and unintelligent one: it could only have arisen with the indolent upon earth; and Tiie Christian J^liilosoplicr triunij>liing over Death, p. 177. MINISTRATION OF ANGELS. 331 wherever found, we may be sure there is an indolent spirit underneath. Heaven, like the Lord himself, who to the pure appears pure, who to the merciful appears merciful, is measured by each man according to his own character and inclinations, and if we would ask which view is nearer to the truth, we may be sure it is that which most exalts us. If true life consist in well-directed activity while we are here, assuredly the continuation of our life in heaven will derive its blessedness, in no slight degree, from the new and mag- nificent opportunities it will there enjoy. There will be an external world of nature to study, consisting of that inex- haustible store of spiritual objects and phenomena which forms the scenery of the spiritual world, and which is the prototype of the material worlds and their contents, and inviting us to endless research and contemplation; there will also be good uses to fulfill, the prototypes of practical charity and affection upon earth, and which will be largely -directed, there is every reason to believe, to the spiritual needs of the successive and interminable generations of men. Angel, literally “messenger,’’ is not so much a designation of nature, as commonly supposed, as a title or name of ofiice ; and no office can be conceived more superb than that of aiding and protecting souls still upon their pilgrimage. That such functions are exercised, in other words, the doc- trine of the “ ministration of angels,” has soothed and encou^ raged the virtuous of every age; the Grecian belief in dacfJLOi^et^ or invisible attendant genii, was itself a recognition of the guardianship of that celestial fraternity, the “bright band” which gave cause to Archdeacon Hare to say so beautifully, that whila it is blessed to have friends on eartli, it is yet more blessed to have friends in heaven. Leigh Hunt, speaking of Shelley (whovse virtues we should do well to ren.ember before his failings), acknowledges this fine senti- ment in the most exquisite manner; “Alas! and he suffered 332 BENJAMIN WEST. for years, as Ariel did in the cloven pine; but now he is out of it, and serving the purposes of Beneficence with a calm- ness befitting his knowledge and his love/’ Thus is our destiny, even in this world, sublime, if we will but serve God, and not Mammon. For the “spirits of just men made perfect” then come into company with us; they “encamp” around us, and “minister” to us, even as they themselves are ministered to by the Lord. It is no mere fancy of a fond mother that the smile of her sleeping infant comes of the angels’ whisper. So lovely an idea would not live among the hallowed ones were it not the reflection of a heaven-sent truth; when the heart in its thankful musings lifts itself towards the skies, it is never sent away with a falsehood in it. Wonderful has been the effect upon mankind even of this little ministry. It was the smiling in her sleep of Ben- jamin West’s infant niece that led him, though quite a boy, to use the pencil. He was placed to watch the cradle, and struck by the innocent smiles of his little charge, drew her as she lay. CHAPTER XIX. DEATH IK BELATIOK TO THE SEIItITUAZ-IIFE. 192. Ip life be realized only in the degree that it is happy, then is an infelicitous existence only a kind of death; and the man who experiences it, though he may walk about, eat, drink, and sleep like other men — virtually, and as regards all the true idea and design of life, is dead. It sounds strangely, but if there be a state of spirit which it is right, preeminently, to call Life, by reason of its excel- lence and exaltation, the contrary condition can be no other than what we have said. Life is where there are hope, faith, reverence, sense of the beautiful, the sentiment of reli- gion ; death is where these are absent or extinguished. Death, in fact, like Life, is no unitary thing ; there are as many ways of dying as of living, and as the highest kinds of life are those which belong to and express themselves in the Soul, in the Soul, too, are suffered the bitterest of deaths. In childhood we do not know this. Death’s heaviest shafts seem to be those which fall on things external to us, as pa- rents, friends, companions ; but as our experience enlarges, we discover that no death is so sad, no death so momentous in its consequences, as the death of the things which die within. So true is this, that often the greatest epoch in a man’s life is by no means the day of his physical death, but the day in which he has died to something more important to him than the whole world. ‘‘ That which has died within us,” says Hare, “ is often the saddest portion of what Death 333 334 DEATH OF FEELINGS AND IDEAS. has taken away — sad to all, sad above measure to those in whom no higher life has been awakened. The heavy thought is the thought of what we were, of what we hoped and purposed to have been, of what we ought to have been, of what but for ourselves we might have been, set by the side of what we are, as though we were haunted by the ghost of our own youth. This is a thought the crushing weight of which nothing but a strength above our own can lighten.’’ Death, accordingly, in its most sorrowful sense, is not the death of the body, but the death of feelings and ideas — the death of our love. For when men say that they have no ‘‘ sj)irit” for a thing, or no “ heart” for it, it is only another way of saying that they have no love,” which is practically to have no “life” for it. Spirit is breath, and the heart is figuratively the blood, and ^ the breath and the blood all life is circled in. So with the expressions “ dead to hope,” “ dead to enjoyment,” “ dead to enterprise.” Those who are thus lifeless are they who, having lost their property, or their animal pleasures, or who, having had their worldly schemes defeated, and have found no better things to set their affections on, have lost their love, for life is union with the object of our love. “Nabal’s heart died within him, and he became a stone.” How sublime a contrast where those better things have been acquired ! Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spoke with an accent of kindness. But on Evangeline^s heart fell his words as in winter the snow- flakes Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have departed. ***** So was her love diffused, but like to some odorous spices, Suflered no waste nor loss, tliough filling tlie air witli aroma. Otlier hopes she had none, nor wish in life, but to follow Meekly, witli reverent stejis, the sacred feet of her Saviour. DEATH OF SPIRIT. 335 Of all sad things in the world, the saddest yet is that which, living to appearance, in soul is dead. Not only in human beings is it witnessed : towns, countries, institutions, may lie dead, though alive, as pictured in that wonderful passage in the Giaour, so beautiful in the midst of its inexpressible mournfulness, where the still and melancholy aspect of the once busy and glorious shores of Greece is compared to the features of the dead, — Ere the first day of death hath fied. * * * * Such is the aspect of this shore, ’Tis Greece, but living Greece no more ! Every man experiences a measure of such death. Every mortification ” we endure is literally a death.” Secu- larly, at least, if not in the higher sense of the words, like the flowers of the Cistus, we ‘‘ die daily and the more that the temporal is loved, the more does the death afilict. For it is of attempting to love the transitory and perishable — so far as it is capable of being loved — and thus of loving what is only a continual vicissitude, that death of spirit comes. That which undergoes vicissitude has only a seeming life in it, and therefore the love of it, so far as it is worthy the name of love, can never uphold itself into a true and felicitative life, for this comes only of loving the unchangeable. Be- fore the eye of Truth,” says Fichte, all life which finds its love in the temporary, and seeks its enjoyment in any other object than the eternal and unchangeable, is vain and un- blessed, because it loves only death.” 193. What we have chiefly spoken of is the death of feel- ings having relation to temporal and external things; far more solemn and momentous is the death of those which have relation to morals and religion. Both kinds might be contemplated as to the place of their beginning, which is 336 REAL DEATH IS LOSS OF VIRTUE. likewise twofold, e., in the intellect or in the affections. The duality in the springs of life involves duality in the place of death. As physical death is referable either to the heart or to the lungs, so is spiritual death referable either to the will or the understanding, and is marked by correspond- ent phenomena. “The d7roAc6(0(7t(^ or petrifaction of the soul,” says Epictetus, “is double; in the one case it is stupi- fied in its intellectuals; the other is when it is dead in its morals. He who is thus dead, is not to be disputed with.” But there is no need to analyze so minutely. It is sufficient to distinguish between death to what is good, and death to what is bad, whether of an intellectual or an emotional character. The Scriptural expressions of being “dead in trespasses and sins,” and of being “dead to sin,” exactly illustrate the difference. In every age there has been a perception that real death consists in loss of wisdom and virtue. “It is a doctrine of immemorial antiquity that the real death pertains to those who on earth are immersed in the Lethe of its passions and fascinations, and that the real life commences only when the soul is emancipated from them.” Evil and falsity bring spiritual life to an end, just as diseases do animal life. “What then are we to say?” concludes Philo. “Surely that death is of two kinds — the one being the death of the man; the other, the peculiar death of the soul. The death of the man is the separation of the soul from the body; the death of the soul is the de- struction of virtue and the admission of vice.”* Aristophanes, in a well-known passage, calls the depraved citizens of Athens “dead men,” and founded, no doubt, on the corres- pondence thus acknowledged, was the belief among his countrymen and other ancient nations, that to see or touch dead bodies was a great pollution. Jodrell gives numerous Allegories of the Sacred Laws, Book i., end. SCRIPTURAL MEANINGS OF DEATH. 337 illustrations, both from historical and poetic sources, (iii. 15.) In the ancient Jewish law, for the same original reason, it was one of the things required to be followed up by “cleans- ing.” “This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent, all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be un- clean seven days.” * Vice as identified with death, is not necessarily vice in its baser forms, or crime; it is wilful vio- lation of the laws of God, whether externalized into criminal act or not; and it is this which is chiefly intended by “ death” in Scripture. “ Life” is attainment of union with God, founded on reconciliation with one's self; “death” is secession from truth and goodness. When, for instance, Christ says that he shall come to judge “the quick and the dead,” the meaning is, all mankind, both good and evil. So when David exclaims, “In death there is no remembrance of thee,” he intends, those wLo cease to obey God, cease also to think of God. “Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,” is a prayer to quicken the soul with new aptitude for sacred things. It is the very same death which is intended in the parable of the Prodigal Son — “ For this my son was dead, and is alive again;” and which the Apostle alludes to when he says, “We know that we have passed from death unto life.” In its direst degree, this is the death which on the other side of the grave becomes “hell,” and which begins it even in this world. It is by no metaphor that men who have steeped themselves in iniquities, cry out that they suffer the tortures of the pit. As no man enters heaven after the death of the material body, but he who has received heaven into his soul in this life; so “hell” is an intensifying and consolidating forever, of infernal states that * Numbers xix. 14. See also chap, vi., and Leviticus, chaps, xv., xxi., &c. 29 P 338 DEATH VIEWED AS REJUVENESCENCE. have already been sunk into. ‘‘Though tliis a heavenly angel/’ exclaims lachimo, looking at Imogen asleep, “ Though this a heavenly angel, hell is herej* Death, in Scripture, when signifying death to virtue, poten- tially means also the eternal perdition of the soul, as in James v. 20, whence it is that we are so earnestly urged to fly from it, seeing that after the dissolution of the material body, ability to escape is at an end. 194. Death to what is evil is rejuvenescence. Though consecrated by use in Scripture, it is a mode of expression, therefore, which an exacter rhetoric would supersede with “life to good.” A man cannot properly be said to “die to evil,” because evil is in itself death. He can only die to that which is essentially Life, or good. “Death to evil” is like “Blessed Life,” a j)hrase which, “according to the true view of the matter,” says Fichte, “has in it something super- fluous, to wit, life is necessarily blessed; the thought of an unblessed life carries with it a contradiction. Death alone is unblessed. What is unblessed, does not really and truly live; but in most of its component parts is sunk in death and nothingness.” By whichever name we call it, — death to evil, or return to youth and life, — nothing ever occurs in the soul of man which more deeply and vitally affects him : for it carries with it the change which it is the ofiice of re- ligion to promote, or what Scripture terms regeneration. Hence it is the true “resurrection.” That which is com- monly so called, is simply the exchange of one’s sphere of action, induced by the dissolution of the material body ; — an exchange which in no way affects or alters the moral char- acter, and is nothing more, essentially, than removal from one country to another is in this present life. The place of abode is new, but the man is the same. Resurrection is rising, not remaining as we were. It is not barely to enter the SPRING AN EMBLEM OF RESUBIIECTION, 339 spiritual world, which is the destiny of all, both good and evil, but to rise into a loftier and diviner state of soul, such as must be attained in this life, if at all. ‘‘He that is un- just, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy stilj.” The avdaavaaK; of the wicked, as Olshausen remarks, is only a part of the ddvazoc: de6Tepo(;, The resurrection, popularly so called, like every other great fact in the economy of the universe, is thus a representative occurrence. Attaching to all mankind, both good and evil, it is not a doctrine pecu- liarly of theology, but one of the simple laws of nature; and therefore an intimation and exponent of a truth yet grander than itself, and ready for all to realize who will. When man disengages himself from his earthly vesture, and passes from the temporal into eternity, he presents a picture of the soul which detaches itself from evil, and ascends into the high and lovely life of Christianity. That the true resurrection is the regeneration of the soul, is shown by our Lord’s own divine words — “ I am the resurrection.” Doubt- less, in his ascent from the tomb, we have the type of man’s immortality ; but this is not so much the doctrine intended in the words in question, as that resurrection is to acknow- ledge and follow him wLile we are yet on earth. 195. Such also is the resurrection which alone is repre- sented and foreshadowed in the beautiful phenomena of the Spring, so enthusiastically pointed to by preachers of every creed and age. When the seeds vegetate, and cover the earth with leaves and flowers ; when the trees bud, and foliage takes the place of snow and icicles, the resurrection that goes on is a rejuvenescence of life, beauty, vigor; no dead thing reappears ; nothing that is defaced comes up again ; there is no portraiture of the re-animation of mere dead material bodies, only of the deathlessness and energy 340 THE FIRST and SECOND RESURRECTION. of moral excellence. Nowhere in the whole scope of nature is there ever seen resurrection of what is dead, or emble- matic of death ; all its revivifying processes attach to things which are alive and representative of life. It is only where the principle and power of life have never been for one instant interrupted, that resurrection takes place ; resurrec- tion of that which has altogether perished and decomposed, as the material body, which in itself is neither good nor evil, is never in the least degree illustrated ; and from this single circumstance, the current doctrine of the resurrection, or that which regards it as a return of the soul into the material body from which it had been separated — the latter being transmogrified into a ‘‘ spiritual body’’ — may be re- garded as much in need of revision. The expectation of such return is in reality no more than a varied shape of the doctrine of the old Egyptians, which led them to embalm the corpses of their dead, to be, they imagined, in course of time re-animated by the relenting soul. Any theological dogma which is not illustrated by the Divine economy as it works visibly in the material creation, may legitimately be demurred to. There is no truth vouchsafed to man but is inscribed over again in the beautiful volume of the earth and sky ; and conversely, the point where nature no longer speaks, is the point where truth also is at an end. The test of truth is that nature mirrors it. 196. With this right understanding of the word before our eyes, we see what is meant by Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.” The second is simply to enter the spiritual world, which all men do in due course; some to the ‘‘resurrection of life,” some to the “ resurrection of condemnation but that which is “ blessed and holy,” is the resurrection which the soul has already experienced in the body. It is this “first resurrection” which is referred to in the encouraging and consolatory NO KESURRECTION WITHOUT DEATH. 341 verse — Precious unto the Lord is the death of his saints.’^ Some think that this means the death of the body. Nay; what God rejoices in, is the death of selfishness and bad passions. There can be no resurrection, either real or repre- sentative, except contingently on death ; hence it is said, that a man must ‘‘ hate his own life,” and ‘‘ except he lay down his life.” “ Life” here denotes that particular, selfish, temporal love by which every man is animated while unre- generate, impelling some in one way, some in another, and which must be subordinated to a higher one if he would rise. This death, therefore, does it behoove us strenuously and unceasingly to contemplate ; and not only so, it needs that, with the Apostle, we die daily,” that is, that we reju- venize daily, exchanging what is unlovely in our affections for some diviner attachment, and replacing our childish, foolish, and unprofitable knowledges with wisdom at once comely and substantial. Every day that something is not effected towards these two ends, is a day ill-spent. Few, very few, are the truths and emotions which, however rela- tively excellent, do not require to be replaced by still supe- rior ones, or at least to be rectified and expanded ; and no- where is the necessity more urgent than in those which have reference to religion and theology. If the first and greatest of existing evils be indif^rence to practical religion, want of enlarged understanding of spiritual things is unquestion- ably the second. People grow up, live and die, in the rudi- mentary knowledge of religious truths communicated to them in their childhood, and think their little leaf is all the forest. Inquire if they have read the last new novel or review, and it is considered a reproach to have to say ‘‘ No.” Ask what new fact they have learned in geography, or other physical science, and a reply is ready. But inquire, even of “ religious” people, what new idea they have of heaven, or of God, or the human soul, or the prophecies, and they 29 342 THEOLOGY A PROGRESSIVE SCIENCE. wonder wliat you mean, or what there can be to learn. Some abstain from search for fear of their ‘‘ faitli’’ becoming weakened. Faith in Christ, says Vater, can be no hindrance to critical and philosophical inquiries ; otherwise he would himself impede the progress of truth. The best token that genuine rejuvenescence of the soul is going on in us, is, that the Word of God becomes daily a richer mine to our intelligence. 197. Death implies a place of burial, and as death in Scripture denotes, on the one hand, declension from virtue; on the other, escape from the power of evil, or regeneration ; so do the words grave, tomb, and sepulchre. The unre- generate man is not only dead, but as truly entombed as a corpse beneath the sods. In the prophets there are many examples, as when Isaiah, speaking of the rebellious,” says that ‘Hhey remain among the graves.” Similarly, in the New Testament, dwelling ‘‘among the tombs” denotes living in the shades and negations of irreligiousness. The “lu- natic” loved to dwell among the tombs. He impersonates the man who is dead to spiritualities. If it be “madness” to act recklessly in secular things, surely it must be “mad- ness” to forget God. Properly regarded, insanity is of two kinds; one conies of the brain being diseased, so that the soul, healthy in itself, cannot use it; this is insanity com- monly so called: the other is when it is the soul that is diseased, albeit the brain be perfectly healthy; this is infi- delity and irreligiousness. The Pharisees of the human race our Lord calls whited sepulchres, because, making a fair show on the outside, within they are full of dead men’s bones. In the sense of regeneration or newness of life, there is no more beautiful instance than that in Ezekiel xxxvii. 12, “Behold, O, my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel, and ye shall know that I am the Lord CONSECRATION OF BURIAL-PLACES. 343 and I will put my spirit in you, and ye shall live.” St John records how the promise was fulfilled: ‘‘I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.” (v. 25.) A moment’s reflection will show that these words can in neither case refer to the resurrection after the death of the body. They can mean nothing else but the ‘‘quickening to grace.” The raising of Lazarus by the Lord, and of th6 widow’s son at the city of Nain, were in- tended as signs that the same power should revive men who had been long “ dead in trespasses and sins.” It was because the Jewish religion was so essentially and minutely repre- sentative, or prefigurative of the Christian religion which was to “fulfill” it, that the Jews were so desirous of burial in the land of Canaan, the Scriptural symbol of heaven. Interment in that country was emblematical and prefigura- tive of resurrection into Paradise. The inhumation of the material body is the resurrection of the spiritual, and where the former is symbolically deposited, the latter symbolically becomes an inhabitant. It is for the same reason, though it may be unsuspected, that Christians bury their dead either in or closely adjacent to their churches, the representatives of the temple not made with hands. Every observance and ceremony of this nature is founded on the relation of things physical to things spiritual. If, then, a man would vitally experience what resurrection is, what it essentially is to rise from the grave, let him, with God’s help, “die unto sin.” That he will survive the death of his material body, he may assure himself, for it is not given him to choose, but whether he will rise or not, he himself must elect. CHAPTER XX. iu<:j u vbnes cence. * 198. More than once in previous chapters we have spoken of Rejuvenescence ; it now becomes important to treat the subject independently and connectedly. The most glorious principle of nature, impressed upon its every object, Life and Death themselves are only other names for Reju- venescence ; the history of the world and of its contents, in all their variety and phases, is no more than the history of its operation ; the one great poetic idea of the universe, all phenomena and splendors, spiritual as well as material, are but parts and elements of it, illustrating and adorning its different modes. Everywhere, since the first morning, has youth been incessantly bursting forth, and creation begin- ning afresh. The universe, open to the eye to-day, looks as it did a thousand years ago ; the morning hymn of Mil- ton does but tell the beauty with which our own familiar sun dressed the earliest fields and gardens of the world all things, says the apostle, “ continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’’ True, there is continual dismem- berment and disintegration ; the flower fades, the animal falls to dust, but this is not death — it is merely the casting away of worn-out vestures, in order that the new may be put on. The form, the idea, the actuality, lives forever; the 344 * Literally ^‘Return to a state of youth.’ DEATH NOT THE DESTROYER OF LIFE. 345 end always reverts to the beginning; from the plant comes the fruit, and from the fruit comes the seed, which again contains the plant within itself. Look at that sculptured pine-apple! Nature in miniature; upon its yellow ripeness ensues a beautiful tufted crown of leaves, promising and be- ginning the whole history over again, the true Phoenix of creation.* The fabled Palm is only a metaphor of the world. Turn which way we will, we find no ‘‘ killing prin- ciple” in nature,' only a vitalizing and sustaining one. Throughout its whole extent. Nature is Life ; in all its forms and modifications, one vast and infinite Life — sub- ject, no doubt, to the extinction of particular presentations, but never to absolute and total death, even in its least and weakest things. Anything that looks like death is a token and certificate of life being about to start anew and invigo- rated. Every end is also a beginning. ‘‘All things in the world,” says Lynch, “ are striving to begin as well as to finish.” Marriage once more is the type and exponent. So far, therefore, from being the destroyer of life, death, rightly viewed, is its nourisher and aliment. A thing does not pe- rish in order that it may no longer exist, but that another of the same or similar kind may enter fresh and beautiful upon the scene, and thus virtually perpetuate the original. “All death in nature,” says Fichte, “ is life, and in death appears visibly the advancement of life. It is not death which kills, but the higher life which, concealed behind the other, begins to develop itself. Death and birth are but the struggle of life with itself to attain a higher form.f * The same beautiful onward growth appears conspicuously in several of the New Holland genera of Myrtacese, as Melaleuca, Me- trosideros, Beaufortia, &c. ; and a similar phenomenon in the cones of the Larch, from the apex of which occasionally extends a leafy shoot, t Destination of Man, p. 127. p 346 EViilRYTIIING ALIVE TO THE LIVING MIND. Granted, we do not perceive it to be so if we look at things merely with the outward senses — we perceive it in the de- gree that our own minds are alive, and apt, from culture and sincere and fervent aspiration after truth, to rejuvenize in themselves. Everything is alive to the living mind. Death is abundant in i)roportion as the mind is dead. To estimate our intellectual vitality, at any given time, we have but to ask ourselves. How much life are we conscious of? We speak, in ordinary converse, of youth and age as distinct ej)ochs, and as a matter of appearance, correctly so. It re- sults, however, from this great law, that so far from being separate and successive, they are cotemporaneous and con- current. Youth does not cease, and age begin. Through- out life their phenomena run side by side, revolving each upon the other, age succeeding youth, youth succeeding age, in the most varied conditions of exchange, and often crowd- ing into the same region. Everywhere in nature we see youth and senility intermingled, presenting themselves alternately, and altogether irrespective and independent of annual birth- days. If decay attend upon age, so does it upon infancy ; if youth is a beginning, so, too is maturity. Life rising out of death was the great mystery’’ which in old time, sym- bolism delighted to represent under the thousand ingenious forms preserved in mythology and ancient poetry, as in the lovely fable of Cupid and Psyche. Nature was explored in her every realm for attestations to it, the results giving to religion new sanctity and illustration, to philosophy new dignity and grace. Sleep was beautifully called the minor mystery of death since the seeming suspension of life during the stillness of slumber, is the pathway to restoration of its powers, and thus a prefigurement of what death is de- signed for. Death, like sleep,” says the illustrious Herder, cools the fever of life ; gently interrupts its too uniform and long-continued movement ; heals many wounds incura- DEATH AH OPERATION OF LIFE. 347 ble before, and prepares the soul for a pleasurable awaken- ing, for the enjoyment of a new morning of youth. As in my dreams, my thoughts fly back to youth — as in my dreams, being only half fettered by the bodily organs, and more concentred in myself, I feel more free and active — so thou, revivifying dream of death, wilt smilingly bring back the youth of my life, the most energetic and pleasing mo- ments of my existence.”* 199. When, then, it is said that death takes things away, it is said wrongfully. It is done by Life, the constant aim of which is to obtain a point of departure for renewed pro- gress, pushing out of the way whatever may obstruct. See what curious and striking illustrations are furnished in the physiology of our own bodies ! The teeth of the child drop from its little gums, that the teeth of manhood may take their place ; the blood, by its particles, supersedes itself as fast as it is formed ; every molecule of muscle, and bone, and brain, is an ephemeron ; our entire fabric is taken to pieces and rebuilt some seven or eight times before we leave it. The bodies of all other animals similarly rejuvenize during the period between birth and dissolution, some, in addition to the molecular renewal, having periodical and most curious replacements of entire organs. Birds renew their plumage; lizards and snakes their skins; the crab even replaces its stomach, forming a new one every year, and casting away the old. Plants also rejuvenize, exempli- fied in the annual renewal of their loaves and flowers. In the higher kinds of vegetation the phenomena are at once so marked and intelligible, as to have called forth the first, and as yet the only treatise, expressly devoted to this mag- * Outlines of a History of the Philosophy of Man, book v., chap. 4. 348 PHYSIOLOGICAL REJUVENESCENCE. nificent science.* Philo beautifully uses them to illustrate the “ unbounded wisdom of God f ’ ‘‘ The wealth of that wisdom is as a tree, which is continually putting forth new shoots after the old ones, so that it never ceases growing young again, and being in the flower of its strength.’’ 200. As a phenomenon of physiological or organic life, Rejuvenescence appears under two great general modes, namely, first. Return by the individual, either as a whole, or in its molecules, to an earlier condition of existence, securing thereby a point of departure for renewed progress; secondly. Repetition in a new being, under the law of pro- creation by male and female, of the entire course of organic evolution. The first has for its object, the completion of the form ; the second has for its object, the repetition of the form. Rejuvenescence in order to Completion is exempli- fied in the growth of a child, leading it on to puberty, and thence to manhood ; that which has Repetition for its end, appears in the phenomena of generation and birth. It follows that it is the power of Rejuvenescence which mainly distinguishes organic bodies from inorganic, since in the latter there is neither a graduated development of the indi- vidual, nor renewal by procreation. Without rejuvenescence there can be no organic development, nor where organs are absent can rejuvenescence ever occur. The distinction be- tween the two kingdoms of organized beings themselves as regards rejuvenescence, is that while in animals there is a perpetual dissolution and rebuilding of the entire substance, the devitalized atoms being ejected, plants never rejuvenize * Tlie Phenomenon of Rejuvenescence in Nature, especially in the life and development of Plants. From the German of Dr. A. Braun, by Arthur llenfrey. Ray Society’s Volume, 1853. One of the most important of modern contributions to the philosophv ol Botanv. SLEEP. 349 a part once completed, but provide for the stability and regularity of the vital processes, by developing new parts. The stem once formed and consolidated, never alters in the least; the leaves and flowers when done with, are disen- gaged, and absolutely new ones are unfolded in their place. 201. Rejuvenescence in order to the Completion of the form, has, accordingly, for its chief process in Animals, the decay and renewal of the tissues ; in Plants, the unfolding of new organs. Both involve a variety of minor and con- tributive activities, but most especially is this the case in the rejuvenescence of the animal, where the full effectuation of the molecular renewal requires and is secured by the grand supplementary process of Sleep — in effect a periodical return of the animal to its ante-natal state, beautifully cor- responding with the resumption of that state in lactation, which is a living over again of the life of the womb, on a higher plane. During sleep, the inner formative processes by which the body is preserved act undisturbedly and con- centratedly. Every one knows how sweet is the restoration derived from one’s pillow when in health ; more wonderful even yet is that which we derive when sleep occurs at the crisis of severe diseases. The nocturnal refreshment of the physical frame induces a similar restoration of the spiritual. Relaxed from the tension in which it is held towards the outer world Avhile awake, during sleep the mind sinks into a condition comparable to that in which it lay before con- sciousness commenced ; all images and shapes it is cognizant of by day, either vanish, or appear only as reflected pic- tures; unexcited from without, it “gathers itself up into new force, new comprehension of its purpose, much that crossed the waking thoughts, scattered and entangled, be- coming thereby sifted and arranged.” Hence is it that “our waking thoughts are often our truest and finest ; and that dreams are sometimes eminent and wise ; phenomena incom- 30 850 TRUE IDEA OF SPRING. patible with the idea that Ave die down like grass into our organic roots at night, and are merely resuscitated as from a winter when we wake. Man is captured in sleep, not by death, but by his better nature ; to-day runs in through a deeper day to become the parent of to-morrow, and he issues every morning, bright as the morning and of life size, from the peaceful womb of the cerebellum.’’ The most remark- able illustration of the bearing of sleep upon rejuvenescence is supplied perhaps in the chrysalis period of Insect-life. Here takes place that grand retreat and gatbering-in of vital power which enables the unsightly grub to expand into the lovely, completed and expressive form we call the Butterfly, so exquisite a symbol of the Spring, Avhen winter, the grub and chrysalis era of the vegetable world, is emerged from and superseded. The analogy is important to consider, because of the common but mistaken impression that the charming green exuberance of the vernal season is no more than the work of the few days during which it appears. That beautiful display is in preparation all the winter, just as the butterfly is in preparation in the grub and chrysalis ; Spring merely brings the concluding steps before our eyes, as the rupture of the chrysalis the painted Avings of the perfect insect. Not a little of the Spring begins in the pre- vious autumn, and even in the previous summer. The rudiments of the future leaves of the alder may be found in August; the leaves and even the floAver-buds also of the lilac; the catkins of the hazel make their appearance Avith the asters and golden-rod; in the bulbs of the hyacinth, the tulij), and the crocus, long before they manifest the least sign of vegetation, the future blossom may readily be dis- cerned. Insect-life, as a whole, is the most perfect example we possess of Rejuvenescence having for its aim the Com- pletion of the Individual. Tlie true idea of AAdiat is so improperly called the ‘‘metamorjfliosis” or “ transfonnation” METAMORPHOSIS OF INSECTS. 351 of insects, is development into a perfect state. It is no change of one creature into another. The caterpillar contains within itself the rudiments of the future butterfly in all its parts ; it becomes the butterfly — not, as commonly supposed, by a monstrous and supernatural mutation — simply by cast- ing its shin, and unfolding parts previously concealed and immature, first the' limbs, by and by the wings, opening more and more, till the idea of the perfect insect is attained. No less striking and beautiful than the analogy of the But- terfly with the opening leaves and flowers of spring, is the rejuvenescence at that season of the Birds. They blossom in the Spring, like the trees and plants, glossy and tinted in their plumage, and like the plants again when they shed their petals, lose their peculiar spring and summer lustre immediately the process of hatching is completed. To return, however, to the Butterfly. We have a lesson in the insect’s history of another kind. From time immemorial the butterfly has been the emblem of the resurrection. Anciently, as with the Egyptians, we find it drawn either in its proper form, or as a lovely female child with butterfly’s wings. “Employed, subsequently, by the Fathers of the Church, the beautiful symbol shone on their ponderous pages like a beam of sunlight falling through a painted window on the gloom of a cloister.” The beauty and truth- fulness of the emblem lie, however, in exactly the opposite direction to that ordinarily supposed. Not only is the usual idea of the resurrection, or that of a decayed body recom- posed in its elements, and reunited after a certain interval to the soul, not represented in the natural history of the insect, but altogether contrary to it. What the history does teach is that which is also the true idea of the resurrection. As the caterpillar becomes the butterfly by no supernatural transformation, but simply by the casting away of outward coverings ; so does man become an angel, not by any imagi- OOZ THE FOUNTAIN OF REJUVENESCENCE. nary transmogrification of his natural’’ body into a “ spir- itual” body, but by the latter, which he always has, laying down and departing from the former, expanding its matured ^ organs, and ascending into that higher and lovelier mode of life which is poetically represented under the name of wings. Only with such an understanding, does the name properly apply to the beautiful creature it denotes. Reau- mur, that great and good naturalist, when he discovered the real structure of the caterpillar, and pointed out the dis- crepancy between the truth of nature and the dogma of the preachers, was denounced as an enemy to revelation. 202. Occasionally, but rarely, there is in man a resump- tion, when old, of the external signs of youth. Cherished from the remotest ages, the idea of a restoration of youthful health, and strength, and bodily shape, by some beautiful stroke of magic, is not altogether remote from fact, though the magic is in nature rather than Art. The basis, proba- bly, of the story of Medea and ^son ; it figures in the fables and national poetry of every period of the world; its most beautiful embodiment, the Fountain of Rejuvenescence, is found in the tales of the far East, in the romances of Chi- valry, and in the Mysteries : in the middle ages it was the symbol of Christianity renewing the moral strength of the world after the corruptions of pagan Rome; and now we have it in a fine picture by one of the best of the French pre-Raphaelite school.* The Alchemists thought to secure such rejuvenescence by the aid of the Philosopher’s Stone, which was not only to ward off* sickness and infirmities, but to replace men in the vigor of early youth. Vincent de Beauvais attempted to show that Noah’s having children * M. Ilaussouiller, “La Fontaine de Jouvence.” See the engrav- ing in tiie “ JlluHtrated London News,’’ September 20tli, 1856. REPRODUCTION. 353 when five hundred years old was owing to his possession of this precious secret, whereby he had had restored to him the freshness of his ancient puberty. Vain expectation! though man may certainly please himself with the refiection that he alone ever steps in the grateful path. The lower animals begin to decay almost immediately after the decline of their propagative power; in man, life is prolonged more or less after virility has ceased, and now and then operates over again some of the most characteristic phenomena of his ear- liest days. The cutting of new teeth in old age; return of the power of suckling; growth of hair similar to that of the young, and several other such phenomena are abundantly on record, as may be seen at one view in Dr. Mehliss, whose curious work, Ueber Viriliseenz und Rejuvenescenz thierischer Korper (Leipsic, 1838), has raised the matter into a branch of physiology. Of new dentition, for example, he cites not less than thirty or forty authentic instances, many of them octogenarian. For the appearance of these phenomena it is necessary, he tells us, that there should exist complete energy and integrity of vegetative life, and probably also local excitement. 203. The second great form of physiological Rejuvenes- cence, or that by which man, and all other living creatures, together with plants, renew themselves as to race, is ex- pressed in the phenomena of procreation. Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; So generations in their course decay. So flourish these, when those are passed away. Here it is that we most clearly understand that death, so called, is the operation of Life. The particular aggrega- tions of material elements, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and so forth, drawn together and consolidated by the immortal idea 30 PROCREATION. 3;i4 of each plant and animal, and by the spiritual body in man, break up and disappear after awhile; but the Form remains with us still; its old apparel only parted with, in order that new may be put on. Wonderful as are the processes of sustentation and repair in the individual, those of procrea- tion, or the sustentation of the species, incomparably trans- cend them. No trifling work is the elaboration of a body which shall feed and grow, move and exchange offices of friendship; but to construct one which, in addition to all this, shall be able to engender new beings like itself, is the very acme of skill and miracle. So excellently has the sub- ject been dealt with by other hands, so extensive also is its detail, that here we need only advert to it as one of the most solemn considerations of life, a subject never to be approached without reverence and awe. The unthinking part of man- kind look upon procreation as no more than one of the com- mon impulses of nature, and consider the slightest allusion to it improper. Many even of those who ought to know better, regard it as ignoble and degrading, and its alluring incidents only as palliative and reconciliatory. There can- not be a lower idea. In the whole range of delegated offices there is none more honorable and noble than to act for the Father of all, as perpetuator of the objects he has created for his pleasure wherefore also the depth and fearfulness of its responsibility, since of all situations a man can place himself in, that of Father is the most serious and manifold in duties. Large indeed should be the faith in heavenly succor of him who adventures upon progeny. The same is the ground of the brilliant delights which enter into its his- tory, since outward circumstance is always made commen- surate with the dignity of that which it accompanies and invests. The Beauty which attends on the period when with the complete evolution of the system, the powder is attained of reproducing the species, is one of the most admi- BEAUTY AND THE NUPTIAL SEASON. 355 rable phenomena of nature. The principle is universally set forth. See how the plant, at its nuptial hour, adorns itself with bright flowers ! See how the glow-worm trims its lamp; how the butterfly spreads its gallant pinions! In fishes, birds and mammals, puberty is again characterized universally by the development of ornaments more or less striking, such as brightly-colored scales and plumage, horns, manes, and beards, the last-named enhancing the manly beauty attained at this period in our own species, the female of which is even more largely embellished by the growth of the hair, and the development of the mammse, and of the subcutaneous tissues of the body in general, giving to the limbs their matchless ‘‘lily roundness.” Not only are beauty of form and color now most exquisite. Flowers smell the sweetest during the union of the sperm-cell with the germ- cell, especially in its central moments, losing their fragrance rapidly when it is completed; in the animal kingdom, dur- ing the same period, sounds are emitted, pleasing, undoubt- edly, to the ears they are designed for, and taking in man, the form of poetry and music. The ballad “to his mistress’ eyebrow” of the lover is the exact analogue of the song of the bird, and the chirp of the grasshopper and cicada.* That the song of birds has immediate reference to their loves, is generally understood. Like the beauty of their plumage, it rises to its highest degree during the pairing season, and is lost at the time of moulting. All our resident birds that renew their song in the autumn, probably have broods at that time; the thrush, and the blackbird, which are heard frr)m the middle of January to October, generally have two broods in the course of the season, and not infrequently * Abridged, in part, from Dr. Laycock. British and Foreign Medico-Chiriirgical Review, July, 1855. 356 REPRODUCTION AN EMBLEM OF ETERNITY. three. But it is not merely a pairing cry, being continued till the young birds break the shell, and in many cases till they are able to fly. Probably it produces general excite- ment in the female bird, while sitting, so as to increase the needful warmth, and a power of more energetic performance by both parents of the various duties of the nest. We all know that there are sounds, especially from those we love, which make the heart beat, and the bosom thrill, and the whole body glow, inspiring us magically and beautifully, and doubtless it is the same with the feathered dwellers in the trees. 204. Holding this sublime powder of self-renewal as a part of its very nature, every animal, bird and insect, every tree and herb, down to the humblest moss, is in its procreant ca- pacity an emblem and prefigurement of Eternity. Forever rolling onwards, the truest and grandest idea of the Divine life is unfolded to us in the phenomena of reproduction. Hence that beautiful custom of the ancients, of placing seeds in the hands of the dead, and in their tombs and sar- cophagi. They perceived that the renovation of a plant, by its seeds, year by year, and from age to age, unchanged in the least of its essential characters, is a picture in little of immortality. The rites of religion always have reference to the theory ; wEerever religion has existed, the offices of the living to the dead have invariably formed a part of them ; and as all religious rites are of necessity symbolical, their beauty and intelligibleness show the quality of the faith which employs them. The custom alluded to thus testifies in itself to the antiquity of man’s persuasion that he is to live forever.* With mankind, elevation to capacity for the * The early Christijins also put seeds in the cofRns of the dead, but in their ease it was in acknowledgment of the imagery of St. THE POEM OF GEOLOGY. 357 privileges and rewards of procreation is the effulgent Aurora of existence. Youth begins over again, on a higher and more beautiful plane ; whatever talents there may be in the soul, now they make their appearance. Early or late, whenever it may be first felt, love, the high-priest of procre- ation, always leads the Avay to rejuvenescence of our entire nature; no pleasures are so sincere and so enduring as those which come late in life through renewal of one’s youth un- der the sweet agency of a happily-placed affection, nor are any so thankfully enjoyed. 205. The rejuvenescence which the entire organic garment of the earth has undergone, and will not improbably un- dergo again, is the poem of Geology. This rejuvenescence consists in the development of successive suites of animals and plants ; enduring, as to their species, for incalculable ages, and then disappearing, or nearly so, to make way for newer and higher kinds, to endure for as long, and in turn be themselves superseded. Four times, at least, says Lyell, do these changes take place in the course of the tertiary era, and to an extent which leaves hardly a species of the first period e:^tant among the species now living. This is not in- consistent with the previously noticed kinds of rejuvene- scence. It is rejuvenescence of organic nature in the mass, the particular genera and species being but subordinate in- cidents in the great onward and upward current of terrestrial Life. ‘‘ Newer and higher kinds” is not to be understood as implying that the new appearances are all of higher grade. “ Geology affords no ground whatever for the hypothesis of a regular succession of creatures, beginning with the simples^ forms in the older strata, and ascending to more complicatet Paul. See an interesting article on the subject in HookePs ^‘Com panion to the Botanical Magazine,’’ vol. 2, j). 298. 358 PROGRESS A FACT OF NATURAL HISTORY. in the later formations. The earliest forms of life known to geology are not of the lowest grade of organization ; neither are the earliest forms of any of the classes whicli subsequently appear, the simplest of their kind.” It is in the aggregate of forms, large and small, higher and lower, that the pro- gressive improvement is shown, and this is one of the proudest facts of natural history. It is proper to remark, however, that there is a difference in this respect, as regards plant and animal remains. While the vegetable kingdom has always had representatives of highest as well as of low- est forms; in the animal fossils of the earlier ages, there are, on the other hand, no vertebrates. But this difference, as Alphonse De Candolle remarks, “ need not excite much as- tonishment, when we think of the vast distance which separates the inferior and the superior animals, and the comparatively homogeneous character of the great classes of vegetables.” Neither does geology give any countenance to the idea of progressive development,” in the sense of transmutation of one species into another. We mention this because of the importance of distinguishing the idea in question from that of gradual improvement as a character- istic of successive creations. It is a very different thing for an organism to improve into one of higher nature, by eleva- tion of its own qualities and powers, and for that organism to cease altogether, and be replaced by a superior one. The changes in the plants and animals of our earth, as regards its successive periods, have uniformly been wrought in the latter way. The evidence of it is plain and abundant; whereas there is none whatever to support the hypothesis of the superiority having resulted from change for the better of earlier individuals. That such improvement in the suc- cessive sets of organized beings lias been made, and is visible to us, is a strong proof of the existence and the activity of God; ‘‘improvement” of course being understood, when FLOWERING PLANTS AND HUMANITY. 359 predicated of the Divine work, not as a coming forth of results of experience in creating, but simply as a term de- noting that Divine wisdom saw fit to disclose less elabo- rate forms in the first place, and more elaborate ones subsequently. The halting of nature at given periods in the world’s history, and in the intervals between one set of species and another, producing (as at present) only the like, is but the same phenomenon, on a grand scale, as that of the repetition of its leaves by a plant, perhaps hundreds of times, before the development advances to the stage of flow- ers. Looking at the world as a grand scene of organic evo- lution, every new step in its rejuvenescence bringing it nearer and nearer towards completion, we cannot but recognize how beautiful an image of it, in little, is presented in a youthful Tree, with its successive sets of leaves, more and more per- fect and abundant in each new unfolding (so well shown, for example, in young sycamores), the last and fairest era being, in the one case, Man and the magnificent nature co- temporary with him; in the other. Blossoms and Fruit. Blossoms and humanity are ideas which invariably go to- gether ; the pre-Adamite plants were almost without excep- tion flowerless; fossil bees do not occur till the period of the earth’s preparation as a home for human beings. “The first bee,” says the late talented and lamented author of The Testimony of the Rocks, “ makes its appearance in the am- ber of the Eocene, locked up hermetically in its gem-like tomb — an embalmed corpse in a crystal coffin — along with fragments of flower-bearing herbs and trees. The first of the Bombycidse too — insects that may be seen suspended over flowers by the scarcely visible vibrations of their wings, and sucking the honied juices by means of their long slen- der trunks — also appear in the amber, associated with moths, butterflies, and a few caterpillars. Bees and butter- flies are present in increased proportions in the latter terti- 360 THE rosace;e. ary deposits ; but not until that terminal creation to which we ourselves belong was ushered on the scene, did tliey re^ ceive their fullest development.” Examining the curious and beautiful relics to wliich Miller alludes, how striking appears the contrast between the tombs of these ancient and inconsiderable insects and those which tlie dead receive at our own hands ! Instead of the gloom which surrounds the last habitations of mankind, here is brightness ; instead of being loathsome and j)ainful to look upon, here is something to admire and covet. How insignificant and bungling seem the best efforts of Art to embalm and preserve the corpse of a departed friend, compared with this simple and elegant method of ^^ature, so profound and perfect even in what may appear most fanciful and trifling in her works ! 206. Not only were the species new, in the successive re- juvenizings of the earth’s surface, but in many instances, the entire families. Eosaceous plants, for example, do not belong to the earlier periods of the world’s history. Hence may we infer the higher nature of their correspondence in regard to the spiritual principles of which they are out- births and representatives, a presumption already afforded in the apple — a leading member of this tribe — being the most perfect realization of a fruit, whether regarded as to its botanical structure, or its uses. In the same generous family are comprised the almond, the strawberry, and the medlar; the plum, the peach, the nectarine, the apricot, “ shining in sweet brightness of golden velvet,” together with innumerable charming flowers, every one of them, without doubt, of a fine spiritual origin and significance. That these plants were not placed upon the earth until the period of its occupancy by man, because he alone could es- teem their produce, and that they were specially destined for human nourishment and satisfaction, may certainly be assumed as the reason of their late bestowal. Doubtless, THE FERNS. 3(iJ there is an exact relation between the races of animals and plants, and the epochs at which they have been placed upon the earth ; since the whole matter of the succession of organ- ized beings is the realization of an infinitely wise plan — whence, also, the impossibility of attaining grand and accu- rate ideas of nature without the aid of geology ; — the pro- founder reason lies, however, in the correspondence of nature and the soul, the order in which, of growth and efflorescence, is in every point the same. Quite unlike the Rosacese are the Ferns. In these, so far from a comparatively recent family, we have the inheritors of one of the most ancient and noble titles in vegetable peerage. Glorious in all periods of the world’s history, while the leaves and branches of its gene- alogical tree are green and vigorous with rills of current life, its roots strike deep into the remotest records of the past. Honorable in the olden time, beautiful to-day, the Ferns are the beau-ideal of a patrician family. Their value is com- mensurate with their charms. Like the Rosetta stone, they speak at once a familiar language and a primaeval, helping thereby to interpret the vast and sacred mysteries of extin- guished ages. Less interesting, only because exotices of small numbers and variety, are those other curious relics of antiquity, the Cycadeae. Memorials of a class of plants whose day is past, they seem to linger with us not so much for themselves as to “ make former times shake hands with latter.” 207. Let us pass on to the renewals that pertain to the Spiritual degree of life. In the changes of our feelings we have rejuvenescences quite as beautiful as those of nature. The decay and retrogression which we see in autumn among the plants, providing the means of a charming palingenesis in the spring, is not more regular and universal than are the declensions we are subject to in ourselves; nor does nature rebound more freely and improved. Whenever there is a 31 Q 362 PLEASURES OF LITERARY OLD AGE. return of the heart from unsatisfying, selfish, or ignoble pur- suits, to a taste for the pure and uncloying charms of virtue and nature, there we have the restoration of our youth; wherever there is advance into new and delicious fields of thought and feeling, under the influence of new scenes, or the advent of new friends, or the passing away of what is painful, or distasteful, life starts anew in all its plenitude of powers and sentiment. How charmingly does D’ Israeli describe the rejuvenescence in old age, of well-cultivated literary taste! ‘‘The steps of time are retraced, and we resume the possessions we seemed to have lost. We open the poets who mad^ us enthusiasts, and the philosophers who taught us to think, with a new source of feeling acquired by our own experience. Adam Smith confessed his satisfac- tion at this pleasure to Dugald Stewart, while reperusing with the enthusiasm of a student, the tragic poets of ancient Greece. The calm, philosophic Hume found death only could interrupt the keen pleasure he was again receiving from Lucian. ‘Happily,’ said this johilosopher, ‘on retir- ing from the world, I found my taste for reading return with even greater avidity.’ Lord Woodhouselee found the composing anew his Lectures on History so fascinating in the last period of his life, that it rewarded him, Alison in- forms us, with ‘ that peculiar delight which has been often observed in the later years of literary men, the delight of returning to the studies of their youth, and of feeling under the snows of age the cheerful memories of their Spring.’ In the solitude and night of human life, is discovered that un- regarded kindness of nature which has given flowers that only open in the evening, and bloom through the night season.”* As morning and sunshine come back in the Hes- * “The Literary Character,’’ chap. xx. See also an original and beautiful “Account of the state of the body and mind in old age, in NEW DOCTRINES AND OLD. 363 peris, the evening primrose, and the night-flowering cereus, so do fancy and imagination rejuvenize with the man of taste.* 208. There is abundant illustration of this great law also in civil, scientific, and literary history, especially the last; and it is worthy of observation that the precursor of a new era is always one who refuses to follow the slavishness, ex- travagances, and caprices of exhausted invention, and returns to the freedom, simplicity, and integrity of nature. This is why men of true genius, who illumine the world with something new and glorious, are always accused of ‘‘violat- ing the rules,’’ ^. e., refusing to dwell among the tombs. What shallow-minded bigots call “heresy” and “hetero- doxy” is often nothing more than the rejuvenescence of a devout and healthy soul, too far elevated above themselves ever to care for their censure and wrath. The great Syden- ham, with whom the science of medicine rejuvenized, as it did with Harvey and Hunter, was conspired against with intent to expel him from his College, as “guilty of medical heresy.” Death, in its blindness, always thinks that its con- trary, or Life, is the dead condition; as evil always pities the good, and would fain persuade us that itself is the sum- the Medical Inquiries and Observations of that most interesting writer, Dr. Rush. Volume 2. (Philadelphia, 1793.) * The number and variety of the flowers which expand, or only become fragrant towards evening, show how deeply seated is this beautiful correspondence. Besides the familiar species above men- tioned, there are the Marvel of Peru, the tuberose, several species of the Germanicese, as Pelargonium triste; several of the Caryo- phyllese, as Silene noctiflora and vespertina, and Dianthus pomeri- danus ; many tropical Convolvulacese, as Ipomsea bona-nox ; additional Cruciferje, as Cheiranthus sinuatus ; together with various Orchidefe, Malvaceae, and Thymelese. Bartonia ornata, and Barringtonia spe- ciosa are also beautiful congeners. 364 REVIVALS. mum bonum. When another kind of rejuvenescence was transpiring under the genius of Lord Bacon, Sir Thomas Bodley wrote to him remonstrating on his “new mode of philosophizing.” New doctrines always displease the small and stagnant-souled, who may be known by their having nailed themselves to given opinions, and considering novel- ties vicious and illegal. Given to fancying that the world has been losing wisdom instead of gaining it, since the pe- riod when they contracted their views, they must work by precedent, or not at all, and hence are never anything but mimics. Not so the men of life and power. “The great men never know how or why they do things. They have no rules, cannot comprehend the nature of rules. The mo- ment any man begins to talk about rules, in whatsoever art, you may know him for a second-rate man; and if he talk much about them, he is a third-rate.” As Goethe said, all great men produce their works as women do pretty children, without either thinking about it, or knowing how it is done. All great epochs are epochs of resurrection. Not one of our modern institutions is purely an establishment of To-day. That which is, has already been, only under another and cruder form. The mode may be different, but the principle is the same; the truths we delight in as our own, were plea- sures to our forefathers; if we do not recognize them in our readings in history, it is because the ages in their spiral rise have lifted them to a higher level, as a building becomes different when we are close beside it, from what it appears while in the distance. Ideas never die. Out of fashion for awhile; lost, perhaps, for generations, they bide their time, then revive, as Ovid says, in nova corpora midata, “ changed into new bodies.” No fragment of truth has ever been really lost. Immortal as its origin, every particle is sure to rise again, its resurrection the result of its immortality. All the great “Revivals” of the present age partake of this THE GOLDEN AGE. 36 character, and result from this mighty la\v> Ijet us be careful then how we ridicule even the least of them. Resus- citations can only happen where there is life; the absurdity may prove to be in ourselves, rather than in the things. What the many are, such is the individual. The parallel between the soul of man and that of society is exact. “Every man,’’ says Sir Thomas Browne, “is not only him- self; there have been many Diogeneses, and many Timons, though but few of the name; men are lived over again; the world is now as it was in ages past; there was none then, but there has been some one since that parallels him, and is, as it were, his revived self.” We often cast our eyes towards the future. If we would speculate on it rightly, we must first comprehend the present, and that is best done by con- templating the past. True, in our retrospect we seem to see little more than Destruction ; but in the eyes of the natu- ralist this indicates Renewal, transition into a new, up- growing Time. Not a few of our greatest riddles have their solutions in ancient history ; yea, even in the fables of my- thology; for mythology is not, as foolish people fancy, pro- fane romance, and nothing more, but sound and living prophecy, a sort of secular inspiration suited to the times to which it was given, and intended to receive fulfillment in later days. We talk of the golden age as gone. Not so; the golden age is both with us, and to come. 209. The highest rejuvenescence of all is man’s return to youth in heaven. Some people think, weakly, that “ death is the only reality in life ; happier and rightlier-minded are those who see and feel that Life is the true reality in death.” Why, then, call it death ? and why mourn and weep for those who return to the spring-time of existence? Why complain that we ourselves seem to be so soon taken from diis land of tombs, and replaced in the golden country of our pristine hopes and imaginings? 81 CHAPTER XXI. HEALTH AND DISEASE— ^RATION ALE OF MIRACLES, 210. Intimately allied with the idea of Rejuvenescence, is that of Health, the synonyme of Life, the delicious Bp ring of all animal enjoyment, and the finest light whereby both to think and to love. Without health, the larger part of our time is at once wretched and unprofitable. Sickness, which, in its intenser degree, is disease, turns existence from a blessing into misery; it makes us “go mourning all the day long,’^ and if not checked in its inroads, soon ends in the death which it foretells. “ The excellences of the body,” says old Charron, “ are health, beauty, sprightliness, agility, vigor, dexterity, gracefulness in motion and behaviour. But Health is infinitely before all. Health is the love- liest, the most desirable, the richest present in the power of nature to confer. One thing only is more valuable, and that is Probity.” Vigorous health is the chief secret of Good Temper. Fretfulness, petulance, irritability, come oftener of bodily ailments than of natural unloveliness of disposition, as proved by the change which supervenes with relief. No one of any considerateness will ever deal harshly where such states of feeling are developed from such a cause, though none are more- likely to be betrayed into im- patience with them than the hearty and robust, who having no experience of the aggravations of physical pain, deem that moral offeiuies can liave no other than a moral origin. As with tlie individual, so with Communities. Study the MENTAL DISEASE. 367 temper of the people who live in marshy districts, of those who encounter an annual tropical fever, or who are subject to goitre, and contrast them with the dispositions of the dwellers on mountains, and in dry prairies ; what selfishness, apathy, and discontent we find in the former class ; what kindliness, cheerfulness, and hospitality in the other! A curious parallel might be instituted between Health and Money. Health is the less envied, but the more largely and thoroughly enjoyed ; money is exactly the reverse, or a thousand times less enjoyed than it is envied. The superi- ority of Health becomes evident, nevertheless, when we reflect that the poorest man would not part with his health for money, whereas the invalided rich would willingly buy health. 211. True of the body, all this is even more true of the soul, which has likewise its health and its ailments ; and in no less intimate connection with its vitality, and happiness, and death. Far more emphatically does the ancient pro- verb apply to the soul than to the body — Non est vivere, sed voter vita. Let no man deceive himself,’’ say the incomparable Pe- trarch, by thinking that the contagions of the soul are less than those of the body. They are yet greater ; they sink deeper, and creep on more unsuspectedly.”* To talk either of life or health, whether of soul or of body, is thus vir- tually to talk of the other ; and the same of their negations, or death and disease. Spiritual disease is not to be con- founded, however, with ‘‘ mental disease,” or insanity, lunacy, idiotcy, dementia, &c., in their various kinds. Not one of * De Vita Solitaria, 1. 3, iv.. Opera, p. 233. One of the best portions of what Coleridge so well calls ^Hhe inestimable Latin writings of Petrarch.’’ 368 SPIRITUAL DISEASE. these conditions implies, necessarily, a diseased soul, seeing that they may and do most frequently come of mere disease of its material instrument, the brain. “ Circumstances not only environ essentials, but alter their seemings. Brains may be born into inconvenient cases. Good human minds, veritable immortal children, may be born into idiot brains, which will represent them badly, as a poor gift of speech may choke the utterance of a rich heart.’’* Spiritual dis- ease is where the brain itself is healthy, but its owner and master distempered. Spiritually, we are well when we feel ourselves diligent in the pursuit of intelligence, and have a conscience void of offence toward God and man,” when we are earnest to keep God’s law, and thence tranquil, and sensitive to whatever is beautiful ; we are sick when these conditions are absent or reversed. The correspondence of physical disease with spiritual is most exact. By reason of it we speak of a healthy tone of feeling, a morbid imagina- tion, sickly sentimentality, ill-nature, ill-temper; also of being sick at heart, ill at ease, cured of bad habits. Pru- dent, well-timed words, Homer calls healthy. (II. viii. 524.) From the Latin sanus and sanitas, we have the equivalent expressions, sanitary, sanatory, sanative, sane, insane, sanity, insanity; the three first applied to bodily, the ^ In ascribing lunacy, insanity, &c. to diseased hrain, we must take care not to do so unreservedly. Cases are not infrequently met with of patients who have been mad for years, and yet whose brains, on dissection after death, present no appearances different from those of persons wlio have died in all the vigor of sound intellect. On tlie other hand, all morbid appearances of the brain (except those wlTuh SJipervene upon general paralysis) are found as frequently in ])ersons who Iiave died sane as in those who have died mad. The sudden cures of tlie mad, tlieir temporary restorations, and many other facts lead to the belief that insanity may probably be a disease of tlie blood. ORIGIN OF DISEASE. 369 others to intellectual health. Sound, which is the same word as sanus, is applied to a sound judgment/’ as well as to a “ sound constitution.” 212. It is because of the spiritual diseases that the physi- cal ones exist ; or rather, they are both of them outbirths of the same infernal cause, namely, the circumstances and principles of hell. Whatever is good, beautiful, and enjoy- able upon earth, is by derivation from heaven, or the bright and angelic portion of the spiritual world; whatever is evil, offensive, and ugly, comes, similarly, from the regions of darkness. Disease belongs to the dark catalogue. In its moral forms, it is directly inseminated and sustained by evil spirits — the door to their agency being the “ fallen nature ” inherited from our parents and ancestors ; for, that man is exposed to the incessant, though secret and silent seductions of evil spirits, is no less certain than that he is blessed by the ministration of angels ; — its physical forms appear among us, because of the universal and immutable ordi- nance that all things and conditions spiritual, shall issue into material representatives. Proximately, these latter are induced by infraction of the laws of the physical world. Though all such afflictions are referable, ultimately, to the providence of God, it is no direct supernatural influence that casts a man into rheumatism or fever, but carelessness of something purely natural. This is the immediate cause of physical suffering ; else man would not be the free agent that he is, in matters of health and self-protection. Disease, accordingly, is no part of the proper nature of things, as death is, but a declension from it. Disease destroys, but death is sanative. Disease is to the material body what sin is to the soul ; a condition it is liable to, but so far as it is given to man to judge, apparently by no means inevitable. A distinction is clearly drawn in Scripture between those who kept not their first estate,” and those whom the sense Q 370 CORRUPTION OF NATURE BY THE FALL of the passage implies to have retained it. Decay is natural, because nature is finite, such decay always having reference to Ilejuvenescence, or the renewal of life; but disease — un- derstanding by this name, painful and virulent affections — is not natural. At least it is imj)ossible to conceive of it as in any way compatible with a state of moral and physical purity, such as that which the Bible teaches regarding our first parents, and which alone is a true state of Nature. Tlie hundred wretched maladies which now infest the world, entered it, there is every reason to believe, with man’s gra- dual, and deeper and deeper lapse into sin, or the m-natural state. While the corruption of nature by the Fall” is un- questionably much exaggerated by theologians, in whose commentaries it is for more largely dwelt upon than in the Scriptures — neither our Saviour nor any of the New Testa- ment writers who profited by his oral instruction ever making mention of it — it cannot for a moment be doubted that there is an awful and unrecalled literal truth in what it is customary to call the “ curse.” Thorns and thistles shall the earth produce unto thee, in sorrow shalt thou bring forth ; and the other similar intimations of evil to come, carry with them the intimation, though this is not specifically stated, that disease also would now begin to af- flict. It would enter the world, like the thorns and thistles themselves, and like the creatures which are noxious to man — expressly taught by Luther, Kirby, and many others to have been unknown to this earth till after the Fall; — it would now enter the world because the latter had become an arena, through the sin of its inhabitants, into which in- fernal principles and circumstances could project them- selves; each thorn and thistle, and noxious animal and disease, being the physical embodiment or playing forth of some element of licll ; the virus of a long anterior sin, in- fusing itself into a fresh country of the universe. The coim PHYSICAL AND MORAL DISEASE. 37 . mon origin of the two forms of disease of course does not imply that they shall exist in the same person, or that moral disease necessarily engenders physical, or physical disease, moral, in a man who suffers from the other. It is in the total of the world and its inhabitants — some experiencing the spiritual, others the physical, that the representative fulfillment is effected. Physical disease visits the most vir- tuous, if they neglect to take sanitary precautions ; and the man who attends to them, though he be a thief and a liar, probably has not a day’s sickness in his life-time. Permitted thus to enter the world we dwell in, like all other evils, it still comes under the supervision of divine love. To exhibit this great principle as regards sickness, has been the happy office of Dr. Duncan, in his commendable little work, God in Disease, or the manifestations of design in morbid pheno- mena.” “ Throughout every department of the various forms of physical suffering,” says he, are scattered in pro- fusion, proofs of care, of tenderness, and of design.” By well-chosen illustrations, embracing many different kinds of disease, the Doctor shows most conclusively, that though in- fernal in its origin, all the subsequent history of disease is a history of infinite benevolence, and this whether it afflict the wicked or the good. This book is of peculiar value as being the first step in a very useful direction, namely, the collection of the evidence of a personal and merciful God in the disorders and irregularities of the universe. 213. Connected thus intimately, it follows that the best and shortest way to diminish physical disease, is to strive to diminish that which is spiritual ; seeing that wherever there is most scope afforded for underlying spiritual forces to ex- press themselves, the physical outbirths of those forces will most abound. So long as mankind surrender themselves willingly to the malignant seductions of infernal spirits, thereby opening the way for aggravation and extension of 372 THE MIRACLES OF HEALING. spiritual disease, so long will physical disease continue in full force. The principle is daily becoming verified. Though the names, and thence the apparent diversities of disease, are multiplying, disease itself, with the advance of civiliza- tion, is steadily decreasing.* While knowledge is power, it is also bodily health. As arts and sciences, social economy and refinement, move onwards, all these things being essen- tially connected with moral or Christian advance, the means are increased by which life is defended, and pain alleviated. How much more, then, may be anticipated from the direct warfare with the very fundamental causes of disease carried on by the extension of religious principle and motive, in other words, from the gradual evangelization of the world. Intelligence assails disease proximately, because it teaches what are the physical laws of health, and the implicit obe- dience they require ; improvement in morals helps to subvert its very basis. To get a vicious man to amend his morals, is similar to burying a corpse. For as the latter diffuses malaria of physical death, so do the wicked among mankind difiTuse those of spiritual death. Innocence and purity are corrupted by them; health is lost, and disease takes its place. 214. The miracles performed by our Lord consisted chiefly in healing, for the very reason that bodily diseases represent the more awful ones of the soul, which it was the object of his life and death in the flesh to remove. ‘‘Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people.” Every cure which he wrought represented the liberation of the soul from some particular kind of moral evil, or some specific intellec- * See Marx and Willis, On the Decrease of Disease effected by the Progress of Civilization 1844 THE TRUE INTENT OF MIRACLES. 373 tual error. ‘‘Bless the Lord, O my soul,” says the psalmist, “who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy dis- eases.” Thus were the miracles in question performed not merely as indications of a Divine power to command, but as media of spiritual instruction. To the more intelligent Jews who witnessed them, they must have been peculiarly attractive, seeing that an especial function of their Scrip- tures — the Old Testament of our Bible — and of the entire ritual of their religion, had been to train them to look for lessons of spiritual wisdom in things physical and objective. Under this discipline, the love of signs and wonders became eminently characteristic of the Jewish mind, as a taste for philosophic speculation and discussion was peculiarly dis- tinctive of the Greek;* so that, from disposition as well as habit, they must have been prepared — or at least the pious and better part, who had eyes to see — to perceive in those acts of divine cure the benignest and most godlike of pro- mises. No man rightly appreciates the miracles who does not interpret them after the same manner. That such is the true and the prescribed intent of the miracles, is shown by the very word used to denote them, which is almost uniformly (TYjiiEtov^ “sign,” implying that they are to be regarded as significant, i. e., significant of something interior to and higher than the bare physical performance. The value of a thing is always in proportion to its significance, to the truth which it representatively teaches ; the spectacle of the world is the grand, permanent source of sound and sublime in- struction which we find it, entirely by virtue of this great quality; as the chief effect of female beauty depends on ex- pression, so the value to our minds of the material universe comes of our being able to perceive in it the expressive cha- * “The Jews,^’ says St. Paul, “require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.’^ I Cor. i. 22. 32 S74 PHILOSOPHY OF MIRACLES. racters of Divine intelligence and love. When, in daily converse, we would speak of a thing as utterly worthless, we say that it is msignificant, it teaches nothing but what we see in its blank outline. 215. Whatever may be the theological importance of these miracles, their value in helping us on towards a right j)hilosophy of the universe, is at least equal to it. We are introduced by them, and indeed by the miracles universally, to new and more enlightened perceptions of those admirable methods of the Creator which men call Nature, and thus to enlarged understanding of the Life which it is one of the splendid functions of nature to assist in expounding, so far as it is capable of exposition. A notice of them is here, therefore, quite in place. Miracles, as wrought by our Lord, and by certain of the prophets and disciples, are not, as many suppose, at variance with nature, but only with unexpanded notions about nature. To assert them to be at variance' with nature, is to assume, in fact, to know every- thing, both about God, and his universe, and his mode of managing it. Nothing can be really inconsistent with na- ture. It is a first principle of true philosophy that events, ajiparently the most unnatural and incompatible, admit, nevertheless, of classification, when taken into some higher synthesis; — that in the long run, everything is referable to Law. Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Every ‘general law’ is only a particular fact of some more general law, presently to disclose itself. There is no out- side, no finally enclosing wall. The principle which to-day seems circumferential, to-morrow appears included in a larger. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end, but that every end is a new beginning.” Physical S(;icnce is continually revealing, or at least pointing to such wider, more comj)rehensive, laws, within which the familiar MIRACLES AND LAWS OF NATURE. 3T5 ones are contained; its progress ‘‘is constantly towards larger and larger generalizations, towards generalizations, that is, which include the generalizations previously established.” Miracles, for their part, however widely they may be at variance with the ordinary course of things, come under a law which comprises both themselves and the daily pheno- mena which surround us, a law of which the sight is not withheld from the inquirer. Everything is a miracle when for the first time witnessed ; it is our ignorance of the cause of the phenomenon which gives it the miraculous aspect. Gaining clearer knowledge, we refer it to its place. 216. By taking an example or two from physical science, we shall see this great principle without difficulty ; — the laws, for instance, under which, in the first place, the leaves of plants are produced, and subsequently the flowers, which are yet but two different operations of one law. Watch a plant during the spring and early summer, and to appearance it lives for the sole purpose of multiplying its leaves, and en- larging its general fabric ; and were we ourselves to live no longer, we should conclude, and allowably, that it was its nature to do no more. Presently, however, the production of foliage is found to be only a part of the scheme of plant- life. As the season advances, our attention is invited to another process. The development of stem and leaf abates, and the plant covers itself with blossoms. Now did we not annually witness the beautiful show ; did the carrying out of the whole of the plan of plant-life, which is for flowers to be superadded to leaves, at a certain time, for a purpose of their own, — did this, we say, take place but once in a thousand years, how little short would it be of all the, external charac- teristics of a miracle. But the exigencies of organization require that it should be incessant, so it is depreciated into one of the common, spontaneous acts of nature. If not ab- solutely a miracle, it is at least a picture of what miracles 3T6 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHYSICAL SCIENCE. are. The flower is from the first, in preparation, — an integral part of the idea of the plant ; tliough to the unob- servant it comes suddenly, the practiced eye can discern its embryo even when the leaf-buds have scarcely begun to open ; beautifully representing in Unites what miracles and tlieir laws are to the Infinite. For could we see the entire scheme of the universe as He alone can see it, we should perceive them, unquestionably, bearing a relation to its symmetry and inviolable Order, similar to that which, in miniature, the flower bears to the plant. So with the phenomena of astro- nomical science. The ‘‘natural law” of the visible heavens is for the planets to move in certain, well-known orbits ; for the constellations to change their apparent positions with the circling of the hours and seasons, and for various other phenomena to transpire, familiar and intelligible enough to their student. Yet how many others take place in the depths of space which seemingly are altogether anomalous, such as most of those connected with comets. Compared with the ordinary occurrences, they are miracles. But no ; whatever the ignorant may suppose, the astronomer is satisfied that they are merely phenomena waiting explanation ; — phe- nomena referable to some wider law, which controls our solar system, and the constellations, and the comets alike, and which science may some day put in the same rank as to iu- telligibleness, with eclipses and the morphology of plants. Again ; “ the anomaly that water is at its greatest density at about 40° Fahr., and below that, expands with decrease of temperature, is held by some to be a marvelous and outstand- ing fact, setting all theory at defiance. Yet no truly induc- tive philosopher for a moment doubts that it is really a part and consequence of some higher law, of which the ordinary law of expansion is a part.”* Much of what it is customary Baden Powell, Unity of Worlds, &c., p. 9G. EVERY NATURAL EFFECT THE RESULT OF LAW. 377 to call, in reference to miracles, the “ suspension’’ or viola- tion” of natural laws, is disproved by the phenomena attend- ing the operation of eoimteracting laws ; also by such as come of the simultaneous operation of two different laws. For instance, it is “ a natural law” that fire shall burn ; but at the 1861 meeting of the British Association, M. Boutigny passed his bare hand harmlessly through a mass of molten metal, showing that fire may be prevented from burning, although to the spectator who is unacquainted with the scientific reason of the prevention, there is no apparent reason why it should not burn. The freezing of water in a red-hot platinum crucible, which every dextrous chemical teacher now shows to his pupils, curiously exemplifies the miracles which come of two or more laws acting at the same moment. The very notion of an interference” with natural law is foolish, since every effect in nature must necessarily be the result of a law instituted to ensure it. In whatever department of nature they may occur, all such anomalies will unquestionably be found some day, to be included under grand and harmonious laws. Nature,” in the words of the great master, pur- sues its course, and what we take for an exception, is but in accordance with law.” As to anomalies, says the acute writer just quoted, ‘‘ the philosopher will always fall back upon the primary maxim that it is in every case more pro- bable that events of an unaccountable and marvelous char- acter are parts of some great fixed order of causes unknown to us, than that any real interruption occurs.”* When we speak, accordingly, of the ‘‘ laws of nature,” and define miracles, as we suppose, by means of the contrast, we do no more than speak of some few laws that lie on the surface. Familiar with a certain number of them, we are prone to look upon ourselves as admitted into the sanctuary of the ^ Baden Powell, Unity of Worlds, &c.. p. 108. 32 378 INTERRUPTIONS OF NATURE. temple, when in reality we are only in the porch. When science shall be able to explain the miracles, it will be time, and not before, for men to catalogue the “ laws of nature.” That smaller things and principles, perfect in themselves, are yet contained within larger ones, is shown as well in the forms as in the laws of nature ; of which latter, indeed, ob- jective forms are only so many exhibitions. However widely objects may vary in configuration and structure among themselves, a common idea is found to pervade them all. Everything is but a part of a wider complex. In all their insatiable variety there is yet contained a permanent and unmistakeable unity. The idea of any given “ species of animal is only part of the idea of the whole animal king- dom ; and this again is only part of a still more enlarged idea, which comprises both the animal and the vegetable kingdoms. This again is a part of the whole idea of the earth, which appears at first sight an exclusive little world of itself, but is, notwithstanding, only a part of a vast system of worlds.” 217. It does but require then that we should carry this great general principle to the consideration of the miracles, to find them, as affirmed in the outset, at once a portion of nature, and one of its most valuable and instructive por- tions ; differing from the familiar portion only in the cir- cumstance of their having been so timed in the general plan of creation, as to subserve specific religious purposes. The difference does not consist, as commonly supposed, in the putting forth of a greater amount of divine power ; it is a difference only in the mode of the manifestation of that power ; or consisting in the unaccustomed shape or formula in which, at particular eras, it has been exhibited to men. To say that an event such as that of the sudden healing of the sick was a miracle,” is strictly notliing more than to s])eak of it as an anomaly in our experience. Whatever THE USUAL AND THE UNUSUAL. 379 else the miracles may prove, the first thing they make us sensible of is our ignorance ; the first benefit we derive from them is impulse therefore to new intellectual effort. There is nothing about the miracles to put them absolutely out of the pale of our understanding. True, nature has an acces- sible and an inaccessible, and it is our wdsdom to find out where the division lies. But it is also true that nature is a vast promise. Though there are thousands of things not yet understood, he would be a bold man who would enumerate what things are absolutely incomprehensible. Darkness, for the most part, is not so much the darkness of night to an eye that is open, as of day to an eye that is closed in indifference. The contentment of the world in general with the light they possess, is no reason with the Fountain of Wisdom for withholding enlarged supplies from those who ask for more. It comes therefore to a mere question of in- telligence and desire to know. There is every encourage- ment to hope and strive. How small a part even of the ordinary laws of nature is yet open to the profoundest phil- osopher ; yet how clear are the ideas already attained from the index which that small part furnishes! How many wonderful processes are going on in secret which we know nothing of! How many are there which this age was first acquainted with ; how many that we are ignorant of will be discovered when our memory shall be no more! We have but to abide by the principles which guide us in scientific research. With every step upwards, we learn to think more of the common” arrangements of the world, and to lay less proportionate stress upon occurrences which are rare, because all are found referable to a central spring, rendering none more peculiarly strange than another, and taking even from the strangest that seeming of an “ interference” with law, or of “suspension” of law, which at first is all our thought. The brute is scared by the lightning, and tlie un- 880 MIRACLES AND REJUVENESCENCE. tutored mind is aghast at the storm ; both are unobservant of the stars and their movements, while all these things are to the intelligent as much a part of nature as daylight. “ The difference between the wise and the unwise is, that the latter wonder more at what is itnusual, the former more at what is usuaU^ In reality, what we pass by so indifferently as “ common,” is for the most part, in the highest degree extraordinary, habit alone dulling the sight to what we should otherwise wonder at as “ miraculous,” just as we are apt to overlook many of the greatest of God’s mercies, because with us always. 218. The function or instructive purpose of a miracle is Rejuvenescence. Wrought in all cases, either directly or indirectly, by Him who upholdeth all things by the word of his power,” the miracles, whether judicial, creative, or restorative, were acts uniformly bearing a definite and posi- tive relation to the highest and heavenliest condition of things, the everlasting Eden of Life. How beautifully is it told of Naaman, that when miraculously cured of his lep- rosy by washing seven times in Jordan, his flesh came again, like unto the flesh of a little cliildy What could show more strikingly that miracles, rightly understood, so far from being arbitrary deeds in contravention of nature, consist in the removal of hindrances to its proper, harmo- nious activity? All, without doubt, were indications to man, that by his moral degeneracy he is in an abnormal state ; that sickness, want, evil, are the ^t77natural condition ; that the state of Nature is Excellence, Youth, Life; that these, as we have said before, are the one grand, comprehensive idea of the universe, and other things mere accidents and j)henom(‘na of their history and promotion. ‘‘A miracle,” says ])r. Cumming, ‘Gs not, as some have tried to show, c.ontrary to nature, but is above and beyond what we call nature. Eor instance, when we read of our Lord’s healing CORRESPONDENCES OF DISEASES. 881 the sick, and raising the dead, we hear it said that it is con- trary to nature. It is no such thing. We call it contrary to nature, because we say that sickness is natural. Sickness is not natural ; it is an ^natural thing — a discord in the glorious harmony. So with death. Death is the unnatural thing, and the natural thing is putting an end to death, and bringing back glorious and everlasting life. Healing the sick, and raising the dead, are the perfection of nature; they are the bringing back of nature to its pristine state ; the restoration of the primaeval harmony, the augury of future happiness ; they are demonstrations to us that all the prophecies which describe paradise are possibilities. Every miracle of our Lord is a specimen of that new genesis under which there shall be no more sickness, but wherein former things shall have passed away, and all things shall be made new.’'* 219. What maladies of the soul are specifically repre- sented by given diseases, it is easy to perceive. Those which are mentioned in the Bible furnish a clue to all. Leprosy, for example, corresponds to profanation ; or the knowledge of what is right, but contempt and neglect of the practice of it. Reverence for divine truth, and obedience to it, is the very first step in regeneration ; hence, the first person cured after the sermon on the mount was one afflicted with the disease in question. The next was one ^‘sick of the palsy;” the condition of the paralytic exactly represents the infirmity of the human will. Fever represents anger, rage, and fury in their various degrees, whence its frequent meta- * Foreshadows, vol. i. Lectures on the Miracles of our Lord, as earnests of the Age to come, p. 9. In saying that death is unnatural, Dr. Gumming of course is influenced by the low and popular notion respecting death which we have had occasion to correct above. 382 SALVATION IS HEALTH OF SOUL. {)liorical use alike in poetry and colloquial converse. Fur- ther illustrations may be seen in the llev. Isaac Williams’ “ Thoughts on the Study of the Holy Gospels/’ and in Hr. Duncan’s little work just now spoken of. 220. Because of the correspondence we are considering, our Lord is called the great Physician and the Saviour. The former name signifies one who restores to a state of nature ; the latter, the healer or health-giver. ‘‘ Salvation” is derived from the Latin sahts health, salvus healthy, which in French reappears as sauf, the proximate root of save. Salvation, accordingly, is that which, as the work of God saves or heals our souls. Hence the cry of David — O Lord, heal my soul ! and the prayer of the pro])het — Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed ; save me, and I shall be saved. Jesus Christ, as the Sun of Kighteousness, is said to bring healing on his wings. Etymologically, heal” and save” are the same word, as readily seen by grouping together the several collateral forms, as ^Svhole,” and the Greek o/oc. The hale man is he who is whole ; health is literally a state of wholeness. Primarily, the words heal and save thus mean to make sound or entire, as when a wound is healed, and the new skin grown over. The numerous sad pictures in Scripture of the depraved moral state as one of wounds, laceration, and bleeding, give to these words, as there '"used, an unspeakable beauty and appropriateness. How sub- limely it is ascribed to the Lord, that He healeth the stroke of their wound !” Derived from the same primitive root, through another channel, and denoting the same idea, are the words solace, console, consolation. An incurable grief, the wound of heart that remains open till death, Ovid beautifully calls vulnus mconsolabilis. Life and health, or wholeness, imply unity, integrity, perfection ; hence we find tlie earth, the firm, round earth,” called solum, and what- ever is like it in its integrity, soKc/, whether material oi MUSIC AND MEDICINE. 383 spiritual. We speak of a solid understanding, as Horace of mens solida, a fixed resolution. To consolidate is to make perfect or entire. The idea of such entirety is the ground of the adjective solus, alone ; and reappears also in or Sol, the sun. Helios was the same as Phoebus Apollo, the god of day and of light, and the father of ^scu- lapius, the god of medicine, if not the god of medicine or healing in his own person ; for though in later times there were as many as four Apollos distinguished, this was proba- bly but in keeping with the tendency of the Grecian mind to change the several attributes of a deity into as many dis- tinct gods. The primitive idea was the sun, the fountain of light; to this, as a matter of course, followed life and health ; and by another beautiful perception, the same deity presided over music, one of the soul’s chief comforters and healers, whence its medicinal fame from time immemorial. ‘‘ The poets,” says Lord Bacon, ‘‘ did w^ell to conjoin music and medicine in Apoll(^ since the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man’s body, and to reduce it to harmony.” Apollo was the pagan aspiration after Christ ; one of his surnames was acoTTjp^ Saviour. His worship, his festivals, his oracles, all had more weight and influence with the Greeks than those of any other deity they worshiped. They would never have become what they were without the worship of Apollo; in him was the brightest side of the Grecian mind reflected. He who is the True Light, the Light which is the life of men, reveals himself also as Healer of the nations, in his lovely song of one that playeth well upon an instrument.” 221. The profound and beautiful relations indicated in the above ideas are acknowledged alike by theology and philosophy, by science, poetry, and language; all of whick testify that like the Bible in its multiplicity of translations, the great, primal truths of creation are yet but varied pre- 384 UNITY OF TRUTH. sentations of One truth. Every cluster of human know- ledge is consanguineous with every otlier cluster, like the bunches of grapes upon a vine, and our highest and most delightful intellectual exercise is to realize their unity, and their common origin. How beautifully, for instance, does science illustrate the correspondence of Light and Music, as regards the fundamental tones of the musical scale and the prismatic colors! The colors thrown by the prism upon the wall are the sounds of music, in a different sphere, so that whatever is representatively expressed in Light, is repre- sentatively expressed also in the harmonies which please the ear, the difference being only in the method. The corres- pondence is not a discovery of science; strictly speaking, science discovers very little; its function is rather to confirm. We speak intuitively of the ‘Tiarmony of colors;” the poet in every age finds music in the lovely variegations of natural scenery, and equally detects in music that exquisite inter- weaving and melody of tints, which contributes so largely to the objective picturesque. The harp of Memnon is not a fable; the glow of the rising sun is a song wherever it may shine; “every lover of nature who, seated on a mountain or by the ocean, has witnessed the sun casting his first golden beams across the earth, has had his soul stirred by its hea- venly music ;” heard faintly and from afar, as it is in towns, still how divinely glad and animating are its strains! Sun- rise may well have been deemed the return of a god : it is not merely the awakener of the world to life; the whole idea of life is representatively summed up in it, as in a happy and beautiful child descending upon the household as its morning-beam. Thus is it with all knowledge; the wider and higher the laws of nature we can discover, the more admirable and extended is our insight into nature, and the more of it do we enjoy at any given moment, as by grasping tlic stem on which they grow, we secure a whole posy of THE VEILED ISIS. 385 flowers at once. Far, we can never penetrate, yet may every man more deeply than he does. Isis still presents her countenance veiled as of old; but while she with disdain rejects the mere dissector and nomenclator, who cares only to inspect her as an anatomist; to him who would look upon her with the eyes of a lover, she will grant divinest glimpses. That heavenly face is hidden from the world only that rude profanity shall not stare at it; it is in wise encouragement that it should be so ; for if, according to the inscription, no mortal may uncover it, we must seek then to be immortal. He whose heart faints because discomfited while on earth, is no true disciple at Sais. 33 B CHAPTER XXII. MOIiTALITY AJVn IMMOIiTALITF, 222. With so solemn and inevitable a destiny as Death forever looming in the future, it is not surprising that the leading text of the moralist and preacher in every age should be preparation for it ; or that, viewing the changes which it works, and contemplating them only in their mournful aspect, the verses of the poet should he strown so profusely with elegiacs. Laments over the evanescence of the beautiful constitute some of the richest poetry the world possesses ; and were even prose literature to be sifted for its gems, they would jirobably be found in connection with the same grateful but melancholy theme, as the loveliest hours of the summer are those which are wet with the tears of Eos. There are no monopolies in the kingdom of thought and feeling ; the spirit by which modern or Christian medi- tations on life and death are often thought to be distin- guished from those of the ancients, is itself cosmopolite, as well as cotemporaneous with all eras ; for although the par- ticular phraseology which the New Testament has supplied, is in the writings of pagan moralists necessarily absent, those writings breathe nevertheless, along with their sad- ness, a serene and earnest piety, which may be found if there be disposition to acknowledge it when met with. T1 lat the ancients’ moralizings on life and death arc com- parable witli those of Christian writers, it is by no means meant to assert. Unhappily, there is but too much room 386 THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE POET. 387 for censure, especially as regards that ample portion where the scantiness and transiency of our temporal opportunities are made an argument for sensual indulgence — when they cry — “ Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.” The verses ascribed to Anacreon and other Greek poets, those likewise of Horace, Propertius, and Catullus, in- citing to such indulgence, are well known to every lover of classical literature. Yet even these have their better, per- haps their redeeming aspect, and this, in merest prudence, should be considered first. Nothing is ever lost, while much is always gained, by attending to the good of a thing before its evil. Catullus’ address to Lesbia, for instance, beginning Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, which beautiful little poem may be taken as a type of all its class, has in it something so exquisitely tender and affect- ing that we can readily suppose the poet to have laid so much stress upon the certainty of never returning into the sunshine of terrestrial life, in order to encourage mankind to value that life as it deserves, and to enjoy it as intensely as the Creator desires we should. As the perishableness of the rose quickens our sense of its beauty and fragrance, so the picture of Joy, with Death in the distance, inspires us with new interest in our innumerable temporal delights, given us, as they are, ‘‘richly to enjoy.” We need such reminders; men weaken in soul as well as body; the glow and ardor of love for the beautiful and true die from out of them, like strength from the limbs, if not watched and fed ; the high and glorious function of the poet is, that he comes to us with his stronger soul, and sets us growing and living afresh. Such restorative, invigorative influence it is the nature and utility of all true poetry to exert upon us, and the degree in which it vitalizes is the token of the poet’s genius. And though his particular theme, as in the song referred to, which dwells 388 LIFE TO IJE MADE THE MOST OF. wholly upon kisses, may seem trite and poor, still he is none the less faithful to his mission if he awaken lofty and amia- ble sentiments. The physical images with which he deals, are so many figures and representatives, which it is for our- selves to translate into their significance, making out a new poem in our own minds. The opposition of ideas, so re- markable in the opening lines of the song spoken of, has a beautiful reflex in the Arcadian landscape of Poussin, re- presenting rural festivity, the charm of which would be sensibly diminished, were it destitute of the monument and inscription.* 223. Be it Catullian or not, the sentiment that we should make the most of life ; that as we go along we should enjoy every gift of God as ardently and as copiously as we can, consistently with sobriety and order, is a perfectly right and proper one — it is more, it is one of our first and highest duties. To sell one’s self to sensuality is one thing ; thank- fully to accept, and temperately to enjoy the honest plea- sures of the senses, is quite a different matter. Sight and hearing, taste and touch, were bestowed for no other end than to be exercised on things congenial to them. The true way to enjoy most of heaven is previously to strive how much we can enjoy of earth ; not, however, by striving to enjoy it exclusively as an earthly thing, still less as a sensu- ous one, to the neglect of the moral and intellectual ; neither again by laying ourselves out for pleasure, purely as such, but by taking as our ruling motive, in our search for enjoy- ment, the higher development of our humanity. The golden rule of all is to connect, as often and as closely as we can, the terrestrial with the heavenly. The highest delight of * For a variety of beautiful commentary and quotation upon this Hu})ject, see Dunlop’s History of Koman Literature, vol. 1, p. 470. VALUE OF OPPORTUNITIES. 389 which liuman intelligence is susceptible is that which comes of the habit of translating the ordinary circumstances of daily life into ideas that lead ultimately to God ; there are no truly beautiful and nourishing ideas but such as are felt to gravitate imperceptibly towards Him, while none are so practical and efficacious, as ingredients of happiness, as those that are sucked, honey-like, from the merest trifles of existence. So in regard to the time for enjoyment. Though we may rely upon the recurrence of some few sources of pleasure, the greater part are so fitful, the total of the cir- cumstances is so unlikely ever to be the same again, and our own changes of emotional state are so frequent and ex- treme — what enraptures to-day often becoming distasteful and even bitter on the morrow — that if we would realize life in its fullness, we must let no chance, not the slightest, escape, though at the moment it may seem utterly insignifi- cant. Life is made up of minutes, and its happiness of cor- responding little pleasures ; the wise man secures the atoms as they flit past him, and thus become owner of the aggre- gate. Making every circumstance of life, sensuous, moral, and intellectual, and every day and hour, contribute a little something, he finds that though a brilliant and memorable pleasure may come but twice or thrice, the secret of a happy life is nevertheless his own. That fine secret is not so much to lay plans for acquiring happy days, as to pluck our en- joyment on the spot ; in other words, to spend that time in being happy which so many lose in deliberating and scheming how to become so. Non est, credo mihi, sapiente dicere Vivam; Sera nimis vita est crastina, vive hodie. ril live to-morrow, His not wise to say ; ’Twill be too late to-morrow, — live to-day. To accomplish this, we have only, as said before, to make the 33 » 390 LIFE HAS A PRIZE FOR EVERY ONE. most of each little incident and opportunity, contemning and repudiating nothing; always remembering, however, that the way (o make such incidents and opportunities most prolific of enjoyment is so to humanize them that they shall flower into thoughts of heaven. AVilfully to let opportuni- ties go by, is a wickedness and an inexcusable folly ; whence the still more foolish regrets which tear the heart that has been so unjust to itself — for folly is only another name for thorn and prickle seed ; — but a greater folly yet, is to stand waiting and wishing for oj)portunities, when in fact they cir- cle us, if we will but keep on the qui vive. As the best school in respect of high duties is the practice of the little ones of common life, so the best and shortest road to happi- ness and true philosoi)hy is to make the most of what lies beside us, and enjoy all we can of the life we have, leaving it to God to determine what fortune shall attend our steps. Dominus providebit. If we trusted more in his sponta- neous generosity, we should seldomer be disconcerted by the failure of our own preparations, and should find that the Divine intent is that life shall be felicitous. The same, did we ask ourselves more frequently what we have, rather than brood so ungratefully upon what we have not Though we may be poor and afilicted in comparison with some, in contrast with others we are opulent and blest. Life has a prize for every one who will open his heart to receive it, though it may be a very diflerent one from the spirit of his early dreams. “ There is no greater mistake,” says a thought- ful writer, “ in contemplating the issues of life, than to sup- pose that baifled endeavors and disappointed hopes bear no fruits, because they do not bear those particular fruits which were sought and sighed for. The tree Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enrich’d Hy its own fallen leaves, and man is made 4 SORROW FOR THE DEAD. 391 In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes, And things that seem to perish.’^* The disproportion in men’s inheritances is far less than we are prone to think. If one hand of the universal Giver be closed, the other is expanded ; no one is left without his meed of compensation, only in our weakness and unthank- fulness we look more at the darker side of our own lot, and at what appears to us the brighter side of our neighbor’s. Epictetus explains the mystery in part ; ‘Gt is not Fortune that is blind, but ourselves.” Whatever be our lot, if man will but just concede that that must be best for him which the Best of Beings has ordained, life* thenceforward has a solace which no fortune can wrest away. 224. Thankful, hopeful, happy as we may be. Death comes at last, and familiar as we may have made it in thought as a general proposition, always so strangely and solemnly as to be incredible and unexpected ; in the case of those we love, as an impossibility suddenly converted into a reality. Immortal until taken away from us, now for the first time we become aware that they were only lent, and mourning and grieving seem to be the only real and perma- nent things of earth. There is no wrong done in giving way to such emotions. To be troubled at the death of those we love, and to shrink from death on our own part, are equally in obedience to heaven-implanted instincts, and the former is always the sign of an amiable and tender disposition. Luther thought that the punishment of Adam partly con- sisted in his long life of nine hundred years, seeing that in the space of it he would lose so many friends. They are emotions, nevertheless, which require to be controlled, and which demand, no less, that they shall not be perverted. Henry Tajior, Notes from Life.’ 392 TRUE WA^ TO HONOR THE DEAD. Our moral and intellectual knowledge we should ever allow to remind us of the high purposes they are intended to serve, and to lift us out of useless and ungrateful regrets. The Creator disposes us to be grieved at the decease of our friends, in order that all humane and kindly feelings may be awakened and deepened. It is for the sake of the sur- vivors that he leads us to sorrow for those who die; that the wretchedness it is to be bereaved of those we love, with the inevitable reflection that enters into it of how much we have left undone that would have contributed to their happiness, may incite us to be more generous to those who are with us still. True mourning for the dead is to live as they desire we should do, and as we feel most pleasure in having others live towards ourselves. Any other is little different from selfishness. “We do not honor the dead by withdrawing our sympathy from the living, or neglecting occasions of being as useful to them as we were to the individual we mourn. No man loses by death the whole of his friends and acquaintance, and can say that his generation has left him alone. The place of those who are gone will be supplied by others; the circle perpetually renews itself; to determine that none can or shall be so good in our eyes as the departed, is at once to behave uncharitably to mankind, and to refuse the compensations which God provides.’’ Thus does the death, so called, of those of our friends and companions who precede us in the return to youth, provide us with the most favorable opportunity of testing how much life there is in ourselves. For the value and reality of a friend consist, essentially, in liis influence on the development of our affec- tions, cliarrning them, as with a song, into love of the Good and Jleautiful, and this, to the soul that is in right order, tlie mere dissolution of the body but little hinders. All that is dearest and loveliest in those who go first, all that makes it giV)d for our souls to possess such treasures, remains with DEATH NOT A MISFORTUNE. 393 US, if wc love truly, after they are gone. Friends, parents, children, brothers, sisters, though they may quit their accus- tomed places, and be no more seen, die to us only when in our inconstancy we forget them. Life is love. So long as we love a thing we retain it. It is only when we cease to love it that it dies. “To me, indeed,” says Cicero, speaking of his lost friend Scipio, “though he was suddenly snatched away, Scipio still lives, and will always live, for I love the virtue of that man, and that worth is not extinguished. If the recollection of these things had died along with him, I could in nowise have borne the loss of that most intimate and affectionate friend. But these things have not perished ; nay, they are cherished rather and improved by reflection and memory.”* Rightly regarded, the death of a friend is one of the greatest mercies God bestows upon us. Not only does it operate upon the development of the affections; but “through the gap which it makes in the visible, we gain a vision into the awful, invisible life of which it was for a mo- ment the semblance. We see what we had forgotten, or never properly known, that the life we lead in the flesh is only the appearance, and that the hidden life of the spirit is the reality, and thence are we warned from walking “in vain show;” for it is no other than walking in vain show, to surrender ourselves, as we are so prone, to matter and mate- rial things, and turn deafly from the message of the spirit- ual.” In its purity, sorrow for the dead is a part of that elegant sentiment of our nature which leads us to sigh at the ruin of the beautiful, wherever it may pertain, or however it may appeal. The heart of that man is not to be envied, who can see the leaves wither and the flowers fall, without some sentiment of regret, or who can pass unnoticed the * De Amicitiaj at the end. R 394 DFATII AN OPERATION OF PROVIDENCE. dried-up fountain, or the time-worn, roofless, silent abbey. The tender interest which every riglitly-ordered mind feels in the frailty of the beautiful, alike of nature and of art, is only a slight tribute of becoming grief and affection, seeing that it IS under its benign and humanizing influence that we grow in wisdom, and become conscious of delight; our sor- row for the dead, so lovely as they were to our hearts, is this self-same tribute, only deserved infinitely better. Far, accordingly, from our thoughts should be the idea of misfor- tune in connection with death. ‘‘To have laid a strong affection down among the dead, may be a great sorrow, but is not a real misfortune. Whatever one’s after-goings may be, there is a deposit for the future life, a stake in the better country, a part for the heart which the grave keeps holy, in spite of the evil that is in the world. The living may change to us, or we to them ; sin may divide, strife may come be- tween, but through all times and fortunes, the dead remain the same to our memories and loves. The child taken from us long ago is still the innocent lamb that was not for our folding; the early lost friend is still the blessed of our youth, a hope not to be withered, a promise not to be broken, a possession wherein there is no disappointment.” 225. If it be inconsiderate, or unkind, or unwise, to mourn for the dead merely in the shape of regret for their depar- ture, it cannot be wisdom to complain if part of our own time seem withheld. That a man should lament at having to die, be it soon or late, indicates neither philosophy nor religion. No one who is in a right state of mind ever even thinks about death. He thinks only of his life, knowing that if this be properly regulated and developed, death, come when it may, will but invigorate and renew him. It would be difficult to find a greater or more pernicious error than that so often propounded as “religion,” that m6n should be always looking forward to their “end.” They DEATH OCCURS AT THE RIGHT MOMENT. 395 Bhould never be looking forward to their end ; they should be too intent upon their present True religion does not concern itself as to how and when men die, but as to the quality of their current life. Men are not saved according to how they die, but according to how they live. Death takes no man unprepared, whenever it may come, wherever he may be, or however employed. Neither could he die at a better time, were he allowed even to choose and arrange for himself ; because God, who fixes it, is the only compe- tent judge of our spiritual condition, and causes us to die at the precise moment when it will be best for our eternal wel- fare, whether we be tending upwards or downwards. Even to the most wicked, death is an operation of mercy, seeing that it is of Him who maketh the sun of his love, no less than that of nature, “ to rise both on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain both on the just and on the unjust.’’ If to one man life be “ providentially spared,” the life of another is providentially taken. The only ground on which we can properly lament the ending of our sojourn on earth, is that it prevents our being any longer corporeally useful to others. But in thinking only of life, and never of death, we are not to think only of our ^ime-life. We should think of our life as a stream, which commencing in a wilderness, presently leaps from it in a waterfall, and thereafter pursues its endless course through a country infinitely rich and beautiful with nature, art, civilization, and religion, refiect- ing in its serene and softly gliding depths, each heavenly scene it visits. Darwin remarks that we are less dazzled by the light on waking, if we have been dreaming of visible objects. Happy are they who in this life dream of higher things than those of earth ! They will the sooner be able to see the glories of the world to come. Living here the true life of the soul, we shall start at once from the slumber of temporal existence into shining and intelligible morning. FEAR OF DEATH. ^ 1)6 To me the thought of death is terrible, Having such hold on life. To thee it is not So much even as the lifting of a latch ; Only a step into the open air Out of a tent already luminous With light that shines through its transparent walls. Wisdom, then, dictates that life should be our great and only regard. For the first office of wisdom is to give things their due valuation, to estimate aright how much they are worth ; and the second is to treat them according to their worthiness. 226. The /ear of death is quite another matter. As said above, it is the simple emotion of nature, the play of a divinely-implanted instinct, and thus conformable to the just order of things. Virtually, it is the impulse to self- preservation, the profoundest instinct of the whole animal creation, seeing that without it, every species, man included, would soon become extinct. The innumerable physical perils which endanger life ; and in man, the mental sufier- ings superadded to them, would lead, in different instances, either to its accidental loss, or its willing surrender, almost as soon as possessed, and thus to the depopulating of the world. How rapidly does life even now become lost, despite the desire to preserve it ! Save for the great impulse within, to Live, whatever it may cost, the world would cease to be replenished, and “ Be fruitful and multiply” have been an impractical command. Men differ about arts and sciences, about their pleasures, fashions, ornaments, and avocations, but all are agreed in the love of life, and hate, and fear, and flee from death. “We do not all philosophize,” says Clemens, “ but do we not all follow after life ?” “ This tem- poral life,” says another venerable writer, “ though full of labor and trouble, yet is desired by all, both old and young, DEATH MAY BE MET CHEERFULLY. 397 princes and peasants, wise men and fools.’’* Virtue, wis- dom, poetry, the Bible, are matters which from intellectual slow-pacedness, or moral disrelish, excite only moieties of interest, but life is the central, universal, indomitable solicitude. The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury or imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death. Man needs, in truth, to love life, if only from the immensity of function which he is qualified to perform ; and doubtless it is in order that he may avail himself of his opportunities, if he will, and build up his futurity, that the love of the merely animal life is made so strong in him ; for this is the first essential to the incomparable privileges of existence. It is by reason of the great excellence of life, as a spiritual necessity, that the deepest injury that can be inflicted is to kill, and that the highest philanthropy and goodness is to preserve alive. To lay down one’s life for another implies the most ardent of all possible love, because it is the relin- quishment of our richest treasure. 227. The man, accordingly, who affects to regard death without fear, must not expect to be believed. He may not anticipate it with horror ; he may have learned, by secret and silent preparation of the heart, and by accustoming himself to see God as infinitely just and merciful, how to meet it cheerfully ; he may be perfectly resigned to it when he sees its approaching shadow ; but still he dreads, and were the spirit not withdrawn by him who gave it, would never part with it of himself. When death is actually about to happen, the fear of it is in great measure lost. At all 34 * Lactantius, Book iii., chap. 12. 898 SENSATIONS OF THE DYING. events it is not common, as ’well known to those wliose pro- fessions lead them to the pillows of the dying. This, again, is a vast mercy and providence of God, both to the individ- ual and to the bystanders. Given to us when it is proper we should live, it is mercifully taken away when we are going to depart. AVhcn we fear death most, supposing that is, that there is no sufficient physical reason for the fear, we are probably entering on our highest usefulness to the world. AVhen fear does manifest itself at the period of approaching death, it is rather as the result of some diseased or enfeebled state of mind, usually induced by spurious religious teach- ing ; or of vivid presentiments of what a wicked life is about to lead to ; than as a part of the animal instinct which pre- viously had ruled. As a rule, death, at the last hour, like Satan, appears only to those who have reason to be afraid of him, and rarely even to these. Nothing is more decep- tive than the manner in which a person dies, though often made so much of. The wickedest die “in peace” no sel- domer than the righteous, though it is the peace of torpor in one case, of piety in the other. The inmost ground of men’s fear of death is consciousness of severance from God, th rough disobedience to his law. Brutes fear to die simply because of their instinct to preserve life, or from the purely animal feeling. Men fear to die from a twofold ground; super- ficially, from the same instinct as that of the brutes ; in- teriorly, from consciousness of this severance from their Maker. God desires that all men should be united to him, and to this end has given them adequate spiritual faculties, wherein they shall exercise the life which conducts to heaven. In proportion as they do this, and thereby attain to con- sciousness of union with Him, the idea of death departs from them, because they are living with the Fountain of I^ife ; the less tliat they feel united, the more do they think of death, and fear to die. While, accordingly, the righteous WHY IS MAN IMMORTAL? 399 man views his physical death with no alarm, the unrighteous carries his fear with him even into the future state. Fear of death is not so much according to the place a person is in, as according to the condition of his heart. It is its own dis- solution of which the soul, in its secret chambers, is afraid ; and the sense of dislocation from God which gives the real agony to the expectation of death here, will constitute a simi- lar but infinitely severer torment hereafter; as in heaven the greatest blessing will be the sensation of coherence with God, or Life. To fancy, as many do, that death is not only terri- ble and affrighting, but physically painful, is quite a mistake, being to look for sensibility in the loss of sensibility. Death is a sleep rather than a sensation, a suspension of our faculties rather than a conflict with them ; instead of a time of suffer- ing, a time of deepening unconsciousness. Dr. Baillie tells us that his observation of death-beds inclines him to the firm belief that nature intended we should go out of the world as unconsciously as we come into it. The moment, says Mrs. Jameson, in which the spirit meets death is probably like that in which it is embraced by sleep. To be conscious of the immediate transition from the waking to the sleeping state never, I suppose, happened to any one.’’ 228. Why is man immortal ? Not simply because the soul is non-material. We must not suppose, remarks Warburton, that because the soul is immaterial, it is necessarily imper- ishable. Though it does not dissolve after the manner of matter, that is no reason why it should not be susceptible of extinction in some other way.* To suppose otherwise would be to esteem it of the same substance as the Creator, instead of one of his creatures, as it is. Of all the arguments for the immortality of the soul, that of its being “immaterial” * Divine Legation of Moses, Book ix., chap. 1. 400 IMMATERIALITY OF THE SOUL NO ARGUMENT. is unquestionably the weakest. “The immortality of the soul/’ says Dr. Knapp, in the Christian Theology, “ neither depends for proof upon its immateriality, nor from the latter can it be certainly deduced.” To the same effect is the remark of Mr. Isaac Taylor : — “ As to the pretended demonstrations of immortality drawn from the assumed simplicity and indestructibility of the soul as an immaterial substance, they appear altogether inconclusive.”* It would be easy to show indeed, that he who affirms man to be im- mortal simply because of the immateriality of the soul, is bound to affirm likewise the immortality not only of the nobler animals, but even of the microscopic animalculse, which would be contrary alike to reason and revelation. Bishop Butler’s argument for the immortality of the soul, namely, that in fatal diseases the mind often remains vigor- ous to the last, though commonly esteemed one of the strongest, is actually of no more worth than the argument of immateriality. Any function will remain vigorous to the last if the organ of its exercise be not the seat of the disease. Immortality inheres in the soul of man not because it is immaterial or spiritual as to substance, but by virtue of the “breath of lives” which God breathed into man in the beginning ; the life of intelligence to hnoiv him, and the life of power and adaptedness to love him. It is through the possession of these two faculties that man lives forever, in happiness or in misery, according as they are honored or abused, and not merely because he possesses a soul or spi- ritual body. They remain with him, and thus keep him alive forever, because given by infinite, divine, unchangeable Love, which, whatever it gives once, it gives everlastingly. Were God to withdraw life from man, even for an instant, Physical Tlieory of another Life, page 254. SUPPOSED IMMOIITALITY OF BRUTES. 401 he would not be the Faithful and the True. The very object of the creation of man was, that a being should exist competent ^to receive and reciprocate this love. Love lives by reciprocity. Its most exquisite satisfaction and delight is at once to love and be loved back again by the chosen one of the bosom and the offspring of the body. Not simply to exhibit his power or his skill, did God create the uni- verse, but that his love might have an arena, and that hap- piness inexpressible should animate innumerable hearts. To think of God aright, we must think at the same moment of a universe of intelligent and feeling creatures, for each idea is needful to the true reading of the other. Any idea of God which does not include man, is low and imperfect. Banish then the fancy that man is immortal because he has an ‘TinmateriaF’ soul. It needs to be something more than “immaterial;” it must be adapted to religious exercises; just as it avails nothing to the Ourang Outang to be organized, he must be adapted to talk and to manipulate, if he is to enter the ranks of humanity. 229. It is because these two faculties — intelligence to know and adaptedness to love — are not possessed, that brutes are only temporal. They cannot entertain heavenly ideas — they cannot feel religious emotions; — as Wesley beau- tifully expresses it, they are not “ creatures capable of God.” Unprofitably indeed has the time been spent by those who have sought to show that brutes are immortal, or even have any claim to be. The chief argument with those who have espoused the notion, has been the “justice of God,” which requires, they contend, that brutes should live over again, in order to be recompensed for the evils they suffer here. This, indeed, is the only argument, as there is nothing in brutes which shows them to be placed here for probationary and preparative discipline, as man is ; such discipline being not only needful to heaven, and the reason of man’s being 402 BRUTES HAVE NO FEAR OF DEATH. made a free moral agent, but one of the best natural proofs of the destiny of him who is subjected to it. Brutes have none of the pains, anxieties, and disquietudes arising from moral causes, to which man is subject. They have none of his love of virtue, thirst of knowledge, or intense and con- stant longing after such a degree of happiness as this life not only never gives, but is absolutely incapable of afford- ing. The plea above-mentioned is therefore the only one. But is it a reasonable plea ? That the infliction of cruelties on brutes by man must one day be accounted for by him is certain, because of the great and shameful wickedness of ill- treating and giving pain to the defenseless. Probably, however, all these cruelties and pains appear to brutes as so many accidents, devoid of meaning or intentional harm, and no more than the fall upon them of a tree or a house. That they suffer with the intensity commonly supposed, may also be seriously doubted. In reasoning concerning the feelings of the lower animals, we are too apt to reason from our own — a course which cannot but lead to error. That which so enormously aggravates physical suffering in man, is the operation of his imagination. Brutes, being destitute of this faculty, perceive only by moments, without reflecting upon past and future, and time and life without reflection are, as we all know, next neighbors to no-time and no-life. Suffer- ing, alone and definite, is incomparably less afflictive than when combined with various and indefinite trouble of mind. Let none suppose that divulging this to mankind at large would be to the prejudice of the brute creation. The gentle and kind will always treat brutes gently and kindly, what- ever their feeling or want of feeling ; while the cruel will always treat them cruelly, as they do their own species. 230. Whether or no, that pain, hunger, thirst, and other such “evils,’’ (which are all that brutes can be seen to en- dure,) require compensation in another life, is after all, no SUFFERINGS AND ENJOYMENTS OF BRUTES. 403 argument, because it has yet to be proved that these are evils; and query, is not the physical enjoyment of all crea- tures quite a balance against their physical sufferings? The enjoyment of the brute creation is immense. We cannot turn our eyes in any direction, but we witness an exuberance of it. Earth, air, and water alike swarm with beings full of the delight of living, and collectively, perhaps experienc- ing as large an amount of agreeable physical sensation as does the total of the human race. No small part of this happiness is of man’s own bounty to them, though certainly for his own interest in the end. ‘‘ He spreads the verdant mead, and lays out pleasure-grounds for the horse, the ox, the sheep, and the deer; and the pang that deprives them of existence is as nothing compared to their antecedent life of luxury. Were there no men to till the ground, the earth would not maintain a thousandth part of the animals it does at present, and the want of cultivation would also unfit it for the mass of living insect enjoyment with which it now swarms.” Besides, in the lower grades of animals, w^hose numbers compared with those of the higher kinds, or quad- rupeds and birds, are as the sands of the sea, physical sufier- ing is little, if at all experienced. As regards these, accord- ingly, the plea of recompense cannot stand, and this is enough to condemn the whole hypothesis. When we see fishes and insects apparently writhing in pain, it is not that they are in a state of agonizing torture, but that they are struggling to be free. Those vehement efforts come simply of impatience of control, a desire common to every living creature. Nothing that has life but rebels against captivity. Imprison even a plant, and it becomes as restless, in its sphere of being, as a chained animal. Pain, in fact, is so slight in the humbler classes of animals as in no way to admit of comparison with what it is in man and the crea- tures he has domesticated. Every entomologist knows how 404 OPINIONS or SOUTHEY, AC. indifferent are insects to mutilations that would be instant death to a quadruped; Mr. Stoddart, in his entertaining little volume, ‘^Angling Reminiscences,” has put it beyond all possibility of doubt that fishes feel no hurt from the hook. 231. The doctrine of the immortality of brutes is an ex- ceedingly ancient one. The Indian, whose blissful heaven consists of exhaustless hunting-grounds, does but reflect from the forests of the West, what is thousands of years old in the Odyssey: “After him I beheld vast Orion, hunting in the meadows of asphodel, beasts which he had killed in the desert mountains, having a brazen club in his hands, for- ever unbroken.” Virgil, in his sixth book, enumerates ani- mals seen by ^neas in the kingdom of Pluto; Hercules, in Theocritus, finishes the narration of his great exploit of slaying the Nemean lion by saying that “Hades received a monster soul.” The same belief existed among the Druids, though doubtless a transplantation from the East; the war- rior shades, celebrated in song by the son of Fingal, love all the amusements of their youth; they bend the bow, and pursue the resuscitated stag. Authors who have left treat- ises on the subject are Crocius, Ribovius, Aubry, Gimma, &c., and in our own country, Richard Dean, Curate of Middleton in 1768. “As brutes,” says the latter, “have accompanied man in all his capital calamities, (as deluges, famines, and pestilences,) so will they attend him in his final deliverance.” Southey, Lamartine, and Miss Seward have written beautiful verses expressing their belief in the immor- tality of brutes. The Penscellwood Papers” (Bentley, 1846) may be consulted for an essay to the same purpose; Mrs. Jameson’s C()mmon-])lace Book (pp. 207-212) for selected oj)inions; and Bonnet’s Pallnghiesie Philosophiqiie ; Idi'GH mr Viiat .futiir des Animaiix, ((Euvres, Tom. vii.) for a long and minute argument. Dr. Barclay (Inquiry, &c., p. BRUTES NOT IMMORTAL. 406 399,) pleads that for aught we know, brutes may be immor- tal, “reserved as forming many of the accustomed links in the chain of being, and by preserving the chain entire, con- tribute, in the future state, as they do here, to the general beauty and variety of the universe, a source, not only of sublime, but of perpetual, delight.” It is true that the forms of animals will be thus needed ; it is true also that they will appear in the scenery of the future world, but it is not true that those forms will be there by resurrection from earth. CHAPTER XXIII. THE hesvrjiection and the future fife. 232. Concerning no subject of vital interest to the human mind are theoretical doctrine, and familiar, practical belief, so widely discrepant, as in regard to that most solemn and awful event of human life, the llesurrection after death. We say “of life’’ because life and immortality, rightly viewed, are not two distinct things, any more than time and eternity are. Life runs on into immortality, partitioned from it only by a thin, dissolving veil of flesh and blood ; Time is simply that part of Eternity in which we exist now. Man isy not to be immortal. Although the true idea of the Resurrection has been incidentally stated in other places, a distinct chapter upon its philosophy and phenomena becomes of the highest importance to our present inquiry. As with many other topics, it has been impossible wholly to postpone it ; some of what we have now to present in a connected form may in consequence want the air of absolute novelty; but by concentrating the whole, perhaps even the points already touched upon will become more intelligible, and thus render the new allusion to them not unwelcome. 233. Doctrine says the Resurrection is to happen in the remote future; Belief says it occurs simultaneously with dissolution. Who ever speaks of a departed friend except as having “ gone to heaven,” tliat is, of living there as a glorified human being, in the enjoyment of every bodily member, and every mental faculty and emotion, needful to 400 RESURRECTION IMMEDIATE. 407 the realization of celestial happiness? Who ever speaks, we say, except of their having gone — mark, not as to go, at some indefinitely distant period, but as having already and absolutely gonef Unwilling as men may be to allow in words that the soul is a spiritual body, independent of the material body, and capable of complete existence after part- ing with the latter; to believe that the departed is “in heaven” is necessarily to believe it ; also to believe in imme- diate resurrection, and what is of no less importance, in immediate “judgment.” In every age has that great unim- peachable intuition of the spiritual body, and of its imme- diate resurrection, been the faith of sorrowing men. What- ever light Scripture may have thrown upon death, to this the human heart cleaves with firm, undeviating affection. However opposed in other things, in this. Pagan and Chris- tian are agreed — death is immediate entrance into the Better Land. How beautiful is the monody of the old Greek poet — “ Prote, thou art not dead, but hast removed to a better place, and dwellest in the Islands of the Blest, among abundant banquets, where thou art delighted, while tripping along the Elysian plains amongst soft flowers, far from all ills. The winter pains thee not, neither does heat nor disease trouble thee, nor hunger nor thirst ; nor is the life of man any longer desired by thee, for thou livest in the pure splendor of Olympus.’^ Cyrus, on his death-bed, desired the Persians to rejoice at his funeral, and not to lament as if he were really dead. The Arabs regard it impious to mourn for the deceased, “ that is,” say they, “ for those who are with Mahomet in Paradise.” “ Dear Sir,” writes Jeremy Taylor to Evelyn, in 1656, “I am in some little djiaorder by reason of the death of a little child of mine, a boy that lately made me very glaa ; but now he rejoices in his little orb, while we think and sigh, and long to be as safe as he is.” Her^, 408 A MAN DOES NOT REALLY DIE. indeed, is the mourner’s consolation. When the loved and lost are thought of by tlie calm light of the great and sacred truth that ‘‘ there is a spiritual body,” they cease to be dead ; their resurrection has already taken place. The mind that is in a right state recoils from the chill ideas of the coffin, and putrefaction, and inanimateness, and fastens on the sweet conviction that the vanished one is alive, and in the enjoyment of serenest happiness and rest. It thinks of the corpse in the grave merely as an old garment, conse- crated indeed by the loved being who had used it, but of no value in itself, and soon to be the dust from which it was moulded. Never was there a more lovely illustration of this faith than the epitaph on the mother and her infant in the Greenwood Cemetery at New York: “Is it well with thee ? Is it well with the child ? And she answered. It is well.” (2 Kings iv. 26.) That part of the great mystery which concerns the souls of little children who die, and their development in the future life, is the most pleasing perhaps of all for our contemplation. Whether do they remain little children, or expand to the full, beautiful, noble human stature ? Either way, those who have lost such a one, are never without a little child to love and nestle in their hearts. The others grow up and become men and women, but this one stays with them forever. 234. In order to a true idea of the Eesurrection, it re- quires accordingly, first that we should have a true idea of what the soul is ; second, a true idea of what constitutes Death. The soul, as we have seen above, is no mere ap- pendage to man, formless and insubstantial, but man him- self. Death, as we have also seen, is simply the departure of man from his temporal, material body, and his conscious- ness of the material world ; and entrance upon full con- sciousness of the spiritual world. The fundamental truth of the whole matter simplifies therefore into this — the dL^- POPULAR FICTIONS OF BURIAL. 409 tinctiveness of ourselves from our material bodies, “ It is the soul/’ says Hierocles, that is you, the body that is yours!^"^ What we are is one thing, what we have, or some time have had, round about us, is another. We must not confound them. It is because they are confounded, that people cannot see how the soul can be independent, and live and act sepa- rately and apart. As we cast off our clothes at night, and wake to the world of visions, so is it at death — we cast off our temporary material bodies, which are only so much apparel, and become conscious of the world of spirits. A man never really dies, A change comes over us, but life is never really extinguished, nor for one instant suspended. The dead, as we call them, are no more dead than we our- selves. Solemn is the thought, but somewhere our departed friends are every one of them alive, consciously, vigorously, actively alive. 235. Further, as the soul is the man, and the material body only his house while upon earth, a man is never really buried. No human being, since the beginning of the world, has' ever yet been buried, no, not even for a few minutes. Buried ! How can a living soul be buried ? Man is where his conscious being is, his memory, his love, his imagination ; and since these cannot be put into the grave, the man is never put there. So far from being pur “ last home,” the grave is not a home at all, for we never are laid in it or go near it. “ How shall we bury you ?” said Crito to Socrates, before he drank the poison. “ Just as you please,” replied Socrates, “ if only you can catch me !” Socrates knew bet- ter than that he should die. He saw through death as a * yap ct fi ipvxh* rd crCSfxa, aov. Commentaries on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, (Ed. Needham, 1709, p. 114). Many other observations of the same tenor occur in this truly philosophical writer. 35 S 410 TOMBSTONE INSCRIPTIONS. vapor curtain, through which he would burst into another life. I shall not die; I shall never die,’’ is what every man ought to say, and energetically to think. “ I shall never die; I shall never be buried; bury me if you can catch me!” Burying, as commonly spoken of, is a gross, material idea, thoroughly vulgar, unpoetical, and unscrij)tural, the result of materialism in theology, and a striking proof of the small amount of spirituality current in the popular reli- gious creed. To talk of a man being “ buried,” put into the earth, and lying there, while his soul is somewhere else, is no less false and illogical to the understanding than it is offensive to the feelings. ‘‘We ought to rise above the use of such base phraseology. We ought even to teach our children, from the earliest, that there are no men and women really in the grave ; and truly they better understand an.d receive this great truth than many of their elders. How difficult to make a child believe that its mother, or father, or bro- ther, is below the sods ! And how foolish the efforts some- times made to force it to believe the degrading falsehood 1 Leave it alone to its heaven-born thoughts. Why attempt to destroy the being of one who is merely absent to us, as we shall all be, ere long, to others?” The very tomb- stone is inscribed falsely. It says “ Here lies the body of .” Rather should it be, “Here lies the last of the bodies of ,” since the body we depart out of at death is only the concluding one of a long series, every one of them quite as worthy of commemoration. The earth, let us remember, too, does not itself open the grave we deem so frightful. It is man who digs it, and who peoples it with the horror which he charges on it. People talk again of the “worms” which devour the dead. Here is another fal- sity. Our bodies moulder and decay, but they are not eaten. Worms are engendered, not by corruption, but by flics, who must lay the eggs from which they issue, and no DEAD BODIES ABE CAST OFF GABMENTS. 411 flies have power to penetrate so far into the earth as the depth at which the dead are usually laid. Wrong feeling about dead bodies and the grave does more than anything else to vitiate religious teaching, to hinder consolation for the loss of friends, and in general, to mar faith in immortal- ity. Happy the day when all shall learn that the corpses of the departed are no more than relinquished garments of living men and women — temples of God in which divine service is over and finished, the chanting hushed, the aisles deserted, and to be contemplated with as little terror and revolting as we gaze at the silent ruins of Rivaulx or Tin- tern before altogether ‘‘ wede away” by Time. 236. The conviction of our departed friends being alive in heaven, fashions our own secret expectations. No one ever imagines from his heart, that he is to lie indefinitely in the earth, but rather that death will be to greet and be greeted by old, well-known faces, shining in the sweetest lineaments of love — that as we were received when as little infants we entered this world, with tenderness and afiection, so shall we be when as men and women we enter the next ; that, in short, all pleasant things and states will immediately supervene, the same, yet inexpressibly more bright, all the dreams found, and only the sleep lost. It is enough that we have a spontaneous hope of it, for the hopes of the heart are rarely deceptions. My sprightly neighbor, gone before, To that unknown and silent shore, Shall we not meet as heretofore, Some summer morning ? When from thy cheerful face, a ray Of bliss hath struck across the day, A bliss that would not go away, A sweet forewarning ? 412 TRUE AND FALSE EMBLEMS OF DEATH. Intuition is worth volumes of logic. “Where, in the plan of nature,’’ says the German writer Reimar, “ do we find instincts falsified ? Where do we see an instance of a crea- ture instinctively craving a certain kind of food, in a place where no sucli food can be found ? Are the swallows de- ceived by their instinct when they fly away from clouds and storms to seek a warmer country? Do they not find a milder climate beyond the water ? When the May-flies and other aquatic insects leave their shells, expand their wings, and soar from the water into the air, do they not find ’an atmosphere fitted to sustain them in a new stage of life? Yes. The voice of nature does not utter false prophecies. It is the call, the invitation of the Creator addressed to his creatures. And if this be true with regard to the impulses of physical life, why should it not be true with regard to the superior instincts of the soul ?”* 237. Holding such views in their hearts, and daily read- ing the book wherein they are confirmed, is it not strange that Christians should use for the symbol of death, the unconsoling, not to say disgusting and disheartening, skull and cross-bones ? What a Sadducean usage compared with the beautiful custom of the ancient Greeks, who, though “ pagans,” saw death imaged rather in the living, glossy, Evergreen tree, and planted accordingly, beside their tombs, the cypress and the yew. In ancient funeral ceremonies were used, for the same reason, branches of myrtle and arbutus, as shown by the beautiful allusions in the Electra of Euripides, and the 11th book of the -zEneid. Certainly the former custom is still extant, but not so its intrinsic significance, or whence the dull surmises that have been set forth to exj)lain its retention ? That which is perennially * Tlie Principal Truths of Natural Religion Defended and Illus- trated, in Nine Dissertations . — English Trans.^ 1766. CHEERFULNESS OF DEATH. 413 fair and cheerful is the true emblem of death ; not that which is dolorous ; the tree green throughout the winter, and the Amaranth, rather than the decaying old bone. How elegantly and appropriately the Amaranth is associated with immortality by the poets ; and practically, under the name of Immortelle, in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise, is familiar to accomplished minds.* No less so the fine similitude of life and its interlude of death, presented in those mysterious rivers which, like the Guadalquiver, after flowing for some distance, lucid and majestic, suddenly hide themselves in the ground, but a little further on burst out again, as pure, and bright, and grand as ever. It is not a little curious that the only personification of death which has come down to us from antiquity, represents it as a skeleton dancing to the music of the double flute ;f the charming old fable of the singing of the swan before its death, is but a poetic ren- dering of the same idea. Jerome Cardan, the famous phy- sician of Milan, in the sixteenth century, concludes his * The Amaranth or “ Everlasting’’ is not, as commonly supposed, a flower sui generis. There are many species, and even genera of flowers which by reason of their jiiiceless and scapose texture, retain their color and form indefinitely. Such are diflerent species of FAichrysum, Gnaphalium, &c. among the compositae, in which family the Amaranths chiefly occur. Oddly enough, the genus botanically called Amar^anthus, least merits the name. Those who would cultivate these beautiful flowers should on no account omit Gnaphalium fulgidum, golden ; Aphelexis humilis, crimson ; Rhodanthe Manglesii, rose-color and silver; Ammobium alatum, white; and above all, the incomparable Astelma eximia, resembling clusters of ripe raspberries. The chaplets, &c. used at Pere la Chaise are made of the Gnaphalium Orientale. No garden need be destitute of the Elichrysum bracteatum. t On a gem preserved in the Medicean Gallery at Florence, and figured in the Musceum Florentinum. Gemmae Antiquae ex Thesauro Mediceo, &c. Plate 94, fig. 3. il4 DREAMS. beautiful book on Consolation, with a comparison of death to marital love. Cum itaque stremem iigonem anima superaverit, tarn quam amans amanti copulata, ea dulcedine ac securitate fruitur, quam nec scribere, nec cogitare possu- mus, &c.’’ ‘^When, therefore, thou hast taken thy last leave of life, thy soul, like unto a lover embracing his love, shall enjoy that sweetness and security Avhich we can neither write of nor conceive.’’ — Opera, tom. i., p. 636. This beau- tiful composition, the choicest work of its extraordinary author, ranks second only to that of Boethius on the same subject. 238. The transplantation of our consciousness, at the period of death, from the material to the spiritual world, has its image in the suspension of our external senses during Sleep, and the wakening of that mysterious sensibility of which we become conscious in certain modes of dreaming. ‘‘We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleep,” says Sir Thomas Browne. “ The slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason.” Strange state of being ! For His still to be ; Senseless to feel, and with seal’d eyes to see. Doubtless the majority of dreams are what Macnish asserts all to be, namely, “the resuscitation of thoughts which in some shape or other have previously occupied the mind.” Experience and revelation attest, however, that at times, the struggles of the chained spirit to employ, and thus to enjoy itself amid the glories of its proper clime, are not in vain. Such are the occasions when strange, beautiful pic- tures open out before our sleeping sight, rich in all the colors and reality of life. It will be said that these are creations of the imagination. Probably so. But then what is this imagination?” Barely to assign a phenomenon to the DREAMS. 415 “imagination” is to get no nearer to its cause. It is to evade the question, rather than to resolve it. The “imagination,” as usually referred to in such matters, is just one of those useful entrenchments behind which perplexity is apt to shelter itself, and nothing more. The imagination belongs less to the material than to the spiritual world; or at least, it is like the Janus bifrons of the Roman mythology, — pro- vided with a twofold face and senses. What the populace say about imagination presenting images that we mistake for realities, is like popular philosophy in general, pure nonsense. No man ever imagined or can imagine anything that has not reality somewhere, and this whether waking or sleeping. That which we call imagination in reference to dreams is what in the day-time we call our poetic faculty, — and probably the play of each is in definite ratio to the other — the prime characteristic of the faculty being unswerv- ing allegiance to Truth and fact, and one of its chief privi- leges, insight into the spiritual world. In sleep we are con- scious of beholding objects as distinctly, and hearing sounds as plainly, as in our waking state, yet with an eye and ear wholly different from the outward organs; and which can have reference therefore only to a sphere of nature and mode of being likewise entirely different, a sphere which can be no other than the Spiritual world.. Dreams, in a word, rank with the highest phenomena of the spiritual life. “Dreams,” says Addison, “give us some idea of the great excellence of a human soul, and its independency of matter, They are an instance of that agility and perfection which is natural to the soul when disengaged from the body. When the organs of sense want their due repose and necessary reparation, and the body is no longer able to keep pace with that spiritual substance to which it is united, the soul exalts herself in her several faculties, and continues in action until 416 PERMANENCE OF THE MEMORY. her partner is again qualified to bear her company. Dreams look like the amusements and relaxations of tlie soul when she is disencumbered of her machine; her sports and pastimes when she has laid her charge asleep.’’ Bishop Newton’s remarks on dreams are little less than argumenta- tive for the spiritual body. ‘‘It is very evident,” he writes, “that the soul is in great measure independent of the body, even while she is witliin the body; since the deepest sleep that possesseth the one cannot affect the other. While the avenues of the body are closed, the soul is still endued with sense and perception, and the impressions are often stronger, and the images more lively, when we are asleep than when awake. They must necessarily be tw^o distinct and different substances, whose nature and properties are so very different that while the one shall sink under the burden and fatigue of the day, the other shall still be fresh and active as the flame; while the one shall be dead to the world, the other shall be ranging the universe.” Lord Brougham’s Dis- course of Natural Theology contains reasoning to the same effect, and almost in the same words. A most clever and interesting little book on this subject, and one which nobody curious in the phenomena of man’s inner life should fail to peruse, is Sheppard’s “On Dreams, in their Mental and Moral Aspects, 1847.” 239. But leaving aside such dreams as those alluded to, even the ordinary kind claim to originate in a spiritual activity, similarly concurrent with the ligation of external sense. For “the resuscitation of thoughts which in some shape or other have previously occupied the mind,” is not! ling more or less than a prelude to what will unques- tionably form a chief part of our intellectual experience of futurity; namely, the inalienable and irrepressible recollec- tion of the deeds and feelings played forth while in the PERMANENCE OF THE MEMORY. 417 flesh, providing a beatitude or a misery forever.* Ordb narily, this resuscitation is of such a medley and jumbled character, that not only is the general product unintelli- gible, but the particular incidents are themselves too frag- mentary and dislocated to be recognized. But it is not always so. There must be few who have not experienced in their sleep, with what peculiar vividness, unknown to their waking hours, and with what minute exactitude of portrai- ture, events long past and long lost sight of, will not infre- quently come back, showing that there is a something within which never forgets, and which only waits the negation of the external world, to leap up and certify its powers. O, wondrous Dreamland! who hath not Threaded some mystic maze In its dim retreats, and lived again In the light of other days ? * * * * There the child is on its mother’s breast That long in the grave hath lain. For in Dreamland all the loved and lost Are given us again. In the whole compass of poetry, perhaps there is nothing more touching than the allusion in the Exile of Erin : — * Martineau carries out this view, in a piece of great power, in the ‘‘Endeavors after the Christian Life.” Vol. 1. Coleridge, in Biographia Literaria, (vol. 1, p. 115. Ed. 1817,) suggests that the “books” which are to be opened at the last day, are men’s own per- fect memories of what they have thought and done during life. In relation to the quickening of the memory at death, it is full of solemn interest that persons so nearly drowned as to lose all con- sciousness, and all sense of physical pain, see, during the moments preceding their restoration, the whole of their past life in mental panorama. Of this there are many well known instances on record. Forgetting, absolute forgetting, asserts De Quincey, is a thing not possible to the human mind. S 418 DREAMS AND I'lIYSICAE HEALTH. Erin ! my country, tliongli sad and forsaken, In dreams I revisit tliy sea-beaten shore; But alas ! in a far foreign land I awaken, And sigh for the friends I shall never see more I That wliich so vividly remembers is the Soul ; and if in the sleep which refreshes our organic nature, it utters its recol- lections but brokenly and indistinctly, it will abundantly compensate itself when the material vesture which clogs it shall be cast away. Much of the indistinctness of dreams probably arises from physical unhealthiness. If a sound body be one of the first requirements to a sound mind, in relation to its Avaking employments, no less must it be need- ful to the sanity and precision of its sleeping ones. Brilliant as are the powers and functions of the spiritual body, the performance of them, whether sleeping or waking, so long as it is investured with flesh and blood, is immensely, per- haps wholly, contingent on the health of the material body. If the material body be improperly fed, or the blood be in- sufficiently oxygenated, the brain and nerves are imperfectly nourished, and the spiritual body can but imperfectly enact its wills. However little it may be suspected, the great practical question of our day, the health of toAvns, thus in- volves, to a less or greater extent, the moral and intellectual interests of the community. For a soul that is debarred from acting freely and vigorously, through a defective or vitiated condition of its instrument, cannot be expected to act nobly and religiously. 240. To enter the spiritual world, or rather, to become conscious of it, requires no long journey. Man, as already observed, is from his birth an inhabitant of it. Wherever tlicre are material substances and material worlds, there likewise is the s})iritual universe. Could we be transported to the most distant star that the telescope can descry, wo should not be a hair’s breadth nearer to it than we are at NEARNESS OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 419 this moment, nor should we be a hair’s breadth more distant from it. So far from being infinitely remote and uncon- nected, as vulgarly supposed, the invisible or spiritual world is immediately contiguous. It circumferences us like the air we breathe. It is only to unintelligence that it is dis- tant, and thus, like the Beautiful, at once quite close, and far away. It is near to ouf souls, which alone have concern with it, as the sweet kiss of true love; far from our bodies as such love is ‘from the vicious. The notion that heaven is somewhere beyond the stars, a country on the convex side of the firmament, merely an elevated part of space, has long since been neutralized by the discoveries of Astronomy alone. Above” the physical earth, and “below” it, are conditions which are changing every moment. If heaven be above our heads at noon, it is beneath our feet at mid- night. The blue, radiant, infinite sky is the material emblem of heaven, but heaven itself lies nowhere in material space, because it does not belong to such space. This is the very letter of Scripture. When the shepherds were watching their flocks on the eve of the nativity, the angels had no long distance to traverse in order to come into view. They were not seen first as a bright speck in the sky, gradually taking shape as they drew nearer. They were beheld “sud- denly,” indicating that they were close by all the while, and that for them to be seen it was merely needful that the spiritual eyes of the shepherds should be opened. It was “suddenly” also that Moses and Elias disappeared after they had been seen on the mount of the Transfiguration; implying a similar closing of the spiritual eyes of the three disciples. So when “the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her. What aileth thee, Hagar?” the words could have been uttered in no distant realm, or they would have been inaudible. At death, accordingly, there is no migration to some distant region of space; the 420 DISCLOSURES OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. avenue to our eternal abode is simply the casting off the ‘‘flesh and blood” which “cannot inherit” it, and heaven and hell are near and distant according to each man's moral state. Death is another life. We bow our heads At going out, we think, and enter straiglit Another golden eharnber of the King’s,* Larger than this, and lovelier. — Festus, 241. What are the landscape features of that “golden oliamber,” of course we cannot know till we enter it, “neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.” But the inspiration which promises it says also that “ the invisible things of God are clearly seen by the things which are made,” signifying that the splendors of futurity, though in their fullness unimaginable, are nevertheless pictured in those of earth. Heaven is the permanent el'do^ of creation ; earth is its dim eldcoXov. The spiritual world is the universe of the essences of things ; the material one is the theatre of their finited presentation; to such extent, and in such variety, that is, as it is necessary or desirable that man should know them during his time-life. Doubtless there are millions of spiritual things which are never ultimated into material effigies, but reserved as the privilege of the angels. Yet whatever we do see that is excellent and lovely, we may be sure is a counterpart of something in every sense celestial. The flowers of the spring yearly delight us by their return, because of prototypes in the spiritual world which are im- mortal, though their material emblems, like the beautiful Dissolving Views, come but to flee away; and tried by the Sensational standard of the real, seem to be gone and lost forever. The rose seems to wither, its petals scatter, and its loveliness is only a recollection; but the real rose can never [)erLsh. The real rose abides where it always was, in the VISIONS OF THE FUTURE LIFE. 421 spiritual world ; and there it will subsist for ever ; and when we cast off our own leaves, we shall find it there in all its deathless beauty, along with all the other loved and vanished. God takes care of all that is truly beautiful and precious, and reserves it for us, provided we will go and take posses- sion. We have but to cross the dark river confident in his trustworthiness, and we shall not be disappointed. God loves to be trusted. Then, too, we shall behold the spiritual sea, and islands, and rivers, and sun, and stars, and trees, just as St. John beheld them when God opened his eyes so that he might tell us of them in the Apocalypse, and as we continually express our own personal hope in respect of, in that beautiful anticipative hymn beginning There is a land of pure delight, and proceeding — There everlasting spring abides, And never-withering flowers; * * - * * Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green."^ We all came into the world for something ; we shall all go * Other scenes in nature may be grander, but lovelier there are none than the view, on a fair summer morning, from the eastern shores of the upper part of the Bristol Channel. Seated on the thymy hills of happy Clevedon, sloping so delicately to the edge of the wild, seaweed-mantled crags, upon whose feet the impetuous waves, dashing and tossing, seem never weary of flinging their white beauty — as we gaze upon the opposite coast, the picture in these verses is completely and most exquisitely realized. There rolls the ‘^swelling flood;’’ there lie the sweet fields beyond,” dressed in their living green,” and dotted with hamlets and white cottages which show conspicuous in the bright revealing sun. Borne to this beautiful presence, the heart learns how to understand the heavenly Jordan, and swells with new delight of pious hope. 36 422 THE PRESENT LIFE NOT TO RE SLTOTITED. out of it for more ; just as when dayliglit is exeluinged for starliglit, we lose our consciousness of the terrestrial in the «uperber consciousness of the universal. Mysterious Niglit ! wlien our first parent knew Thee, from rej^ort divine, and heard tliy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet, hieath a curtain of translucent dew. Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus, with the host of heaven came, And lo ! creation widened in man’s view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun ? or who could find^ Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed. That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind ? Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife ? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life ? 242. But, because of these prospects, we are not to think slightingly of the present life and its arena. Each sphere of being is divine, for each is the work of God, and if not felt sacred, it is the observer that is in fault. Many think that because heaven, which is the sunny part of the spiritual world, is above all places holy, therefore the material world, this earth, is vile — the devil’s kingdom. Not so. The world, properly regarded, is God’s kingdom, not the devil’s. Hell only is the devil’s kingdom. True, Jesus said, ‘‘ My kingdom is not of this world.” But it is quite wrong to in- fer from this, as many do, that he neither felt any interest in it himself, nor desired that man should feel any. To fancy our Lord to have promulgated Christianity upon earth solely with a view to man’s future happiness in hea- ven, is one of the fatalest errors we can fall into. The true oliice of ndigion is to teach us so to live in this world, and so to enjoy it, that we must needs live in and enjoy the KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WOULD/' 423 other. If thou wilt rightly understand and love eternity, learn properly to understand and love terrestrial life. The true preparation for heaven is to learn what we have on earth, and to be glad in it." To say that there is ‘‘ nothing true but heaven," that all below is unworthy a wish or thought, is the very opposite to what Christ really taught. Certainly, the world we live in is full of trials and deceitful- ness, ^d blessed is the promise of solace and compensation in a brighter sphere ; but it is God's world still, therefore abounding in good and beauty, and impossible to be all worthlessness and illusion. The tendency to neglect and too little appreciate the advantages of the present life, en- couraged by the incessant dwelling by many of our spiritual teachers on the prospects of the life to come, is a result which every thinking Christian man cannot but deplore; for that cannot be a true spirit of Christianity which deems our beautiful world a mere ^ Wale of tears," the mere pas- sage to a better, or which thanks God not so much for what he has already given, as for what we consider we are and ought, to receive. What our Lord really meant in those memorable words, My kingdom, "&c., was, that he came to introduce an order of things based on other principles en- tirely than those of the humanly constituted kingdoms then existing — principles of love, charity and mercy, instead of selfishness, cruelty and aggression. Hence the angels sang not only Glory to God in the highest, but on earth, peace and good-will. There is something truly grand in the spec- tacle of a man in the enjoyment of health, prosperity, and reputation, looking forward nevertheless to a future life, with hope and thankfulness. Far more admirable, how- ever, is the spectacle of him who feels this hope and thank- fulness, not by reason of dissatisfaction with the world, but by reason of its ministry to him of wisdom and delight. “ The fact," says a great and original writer, “ that the sky 424 FANATICISM AND TERRESTRIALTSM. is brighter tlian the earth is not a precious truth unless the earth itself be first understood. Despise the earth, or slan- der it, fix your eyes on its gloom, and forget its loveliness, and we do not thank you for your languid or despairing perception of brightness in heaven. But rise up actively on the earth, learn what there is in it, know its color and form, and the full measure and make of it, and when after that, you say ^ heaven is bright,’ it will be a precious truth, but not till then.” (Buskin, Modern Painters, iv. 39.) Con- stant dwelling upon death and what will follow it, too often confounded with religion, and even mistaken for it, is not only not healthful to the soul, but injurious. True, the way to live pleasantly is to learn to die hopefully ; “ fine ideas,” says Goethe, must needs fill the soul that in any way out- steps the boundaries of terrestrial life;” but we must not think only of dying ; it is more religious to seek to preserve our life as long as we possibly can, and to exert ourselves as far as strength and opportunity will permit, than to estrange ourselves from God’s gifts. Anything which too powerfully attracts us away from the duties of the present life, cannot be regarded as beneficial. While here, the living should belong to life, and adapt themselves to it. God has shown us that it is his will that 'vve should do so, by withholding from us every clue as to the time of our de- parture. A truly noble soul loves both heaven and earth, falling neither into fanaticism nor terrestrialism. The func- tions of our temporal life are as noble in their degree as those of eternity can be. Our relations to God can never be more intimate or grand. It is a poor mistake to think that we compliment God’s heaven by despising his earth, and that we best show our sense of the great things the fu- ture man will do yonder, by counting as utterly worthless all that the present man can do here.” CHAPTER XXIV. TME ANALOGIES OF NATVRE—LAW OF FMEFIGVRATION 243. A TRUE philosophy of Life includes the great phe- nomena of Analogy. In order, therefore, to the comple- tion of our subject, it is proper that they should receive an independent and methodical consideration, over and above the passing allusions that have from time to time been made. Analogy as it exists among natural objects and appearances, is not, as often supposed, mere casual and superficial resem- blance, though it is perfectly true that such resemblance exists. It is a part of the very method, order, and consti- tution of things. The evidence of the Unity of creation resides in its analogies ; in these also we realize the noblest and most ennobling knowledge that is open to us after Scrip- tural truth, namely, the dual glory and blessedness of our position in the universe, or as regards ISTature on the one hand, below, and God upon the other hand, above. Lord Bacon, who calls them the “ respondences” of Nature, fully alive to their value, thus urgently enforces it in the Ad- vancement of Learning. ‘^Neither,’’ says he, “are those of which we have spoken, and others of like nature, mere resemblances (as men of narrow observation may possibly imagine), but one and the very same seals and footsteps of Nature, impressed upon various subjects and objects. Hitherto this branch of science hath not been cultivated as it ought. In the writings emanating from the profounder class of wits you may find examples thinly and sparsely in- 36 425 426 ANALOGY AND CORRESPONDENCE. sorted, for the use and illustration of the argument, but a complete body of these axioms no one hath yet prepared ; though they have a primitive force and efficacy in all science, and are of such consequence as materially to conduce to the understanding of the Unity of Nature ; which latter we con- ceive to be the office and use of Piiilosophia Prima.” All philosophy goes to establish this high claim. No portion of Nature is truly intelligible till its analogies with the other portions are investigated and applied ; the man who disre- gards them can never be more than a sectarian, while he who uses them — not in the way of a trifler, as the end of his inquiries, but as a philosopher, for their efficacy as a means — proves that it is they alone which can render the mind cosmopolitan, and truly instruct us in the arcana of creation. A man may be a very good chemist, as to ac- quaintance with salts and acids; he may be a very good botanist, as concerns the names and uses of plants ; but this is only to be a savant ; he is no philosopher till he can gather new insight into his chemistry or his botany by virtue of its analogies with other shapes of truth, and feel the centrality, as to essentials, of every science. For the true analogist, wherever he may be, however he may shift his standing ground, always finds himself in the middle of nature, his particular object for the time being, the clue and text-book to the whole. The characteristic of the true philosopher is his large consciousness of what is proper to the race in general, and of the varied circumstances which pertain to its expression in the individual. Analogy as it exists in the world of material nature, or as we are now treating of it, must not be confounded with Correspondence. ‘‘Corre- spondence,” in the strict and proper sense of the word, and as ordinarily used in this volume, denotes the relation of the mat(Tial and objective, to the spiritual and invisible, that is to say, the relation of inmost Cause to outermost ANALOGY AND CORRESPONDENCE. 427 Effect, all causes belonging primarily to the spiritual world, and the phenomena of material nature being so many final effects of them, as shown in our chapter upon this subject. Correspondence, accordingly, can properly be spoken only of that first, governing analogy of the universe which in- volves the relation of a prior principle to a posterior, of a noumenon to a phenomenon, or riee versa. The analogies of the material world are secondary, and are not correspond- ences. They are analogies of one natural effect with another natural effect; of one natural cause with another natural cause, and so forth ; while Correspondences rest on the rela- tions, not of two natural things to one another, but of natural things to spiritual things. 244. The value of the study of analogy, even in its sim- plest applications, is impossible to be over-rated. There is not a single science from which difficulties have not been removed by the certainties of a kindred science, when ana- logically compared with it, or which, on similar comparison, does not furnish new hints and illustrations. It is curious,’’ remarks Sir David Brewster, tacitly vouching for this prin- ciple, ‘^how the conjectures in one science are sometimes converted into truths by the discoveries in another.” Struc- tures, forms, and phenomena, moreover, which are incom- prehensible, considered locally and specifically, and which often seem positively useless and incongruous, become, by reference to a higher synthesis, based on an extended and philosophic consideration of analogies, not only comprehen- sible, but fraught with meaning of the finest order. Such, for example, are the organs which in man seem meaningless mimicry of the female bosom. Viewed by the light of analogy, there is nothing in the world either capricious or inconsistent. The mistake which too often prevents the full realization of the use of analogy, and tends even to en- gender distrust and prejudice, is the waywardness wliich so 428 GENERALIZATION THE BASIS OF PHILOSOPHY. commonly persists in contrasting that which is liighest with that which is lowest — the extremes, in a word — and rejecting all that lies between as anomalous. Relations, like causes, that are not immediate, are discovered by such as are inter- mediate, When divested of the arbitrary disguises with which fancy may choose to clothe them, the highest and the lowest reflect each other’s looks, and a common brotherhood becomes everywhere apparent. Because of this grand con- sanguinity of all knowledge, arising from the unity of nature, comes also the lofty opinion which the votaries of any particular department entertain of it. To the geologist there is nothing nobler than geology; to the chemist than chemistry ; to the florist than floriculture. Each man feels the throbbing of the mighty heart, and, like the true analo- gist, seems to himself to stand in the middle. 245. Analogy accordingly, true, inductive, poetic analogy, constitutes the highest exercise of philosophy, “the science,” as Adam Smith well defines it, “of the connecting principles of nature’’ Not that perception of analogies is itself philo- sophy, but that all true philosophy rests on large and bril- liant generalization, the means to this latter being fine and lively aptitude for the former. “The excellence of a philo- sophy,” says Ruskin, “ consists in the breadth of its harmony, or the number of truths it has been able to reconcile.” That powerful capacity of abstraction which seizing the points of agreement in a number of otherwise dissimilar in- dividuals, marshals the related, and separates the alien, is in fact, the highest prerogative of the human mind. “To generalize,” says Mackay, “to discover unity in multiplicity, order in apparent confusion ; to separate from the accidental and the transitory, the stable and universal; this is the great aim of human Reason.” Not only is it the strongest evi- dence of Intellectual greatness. “The tendency to connect and harmonize everything is one of the eminent conditions TRUE IDEA OF GENIUS. 429 of a mind leaning to virtue and beauty, just as the tendency to dismember and separate everything is that of a mind leaning to vice and ugliness.’’ The finest part of Originality is combination, or the power of generalizing and uniting, discovering new harmonies among familiar elements, and showing us gracefully and eloquently how to see them for ourselves. Originality therefore, instead of being, as many suppose, nearly exhausted, instead of becoming rarer, will become grander every day, and go on delighting us forever, seeing that with increase of facts and principles to generalize and combine, will there be scope for the power of generalizing. Essentially, this great power is innate and intuitional; hence it is classed by Plato with the divine or Promethean gifts. Forming, as it does, an integral and vital part of Genius,” or that which we are born with, if genius be acknowledged a boon from heaven, the part must of ne- cessity be of the same origin as the whole, and the sage of the Academian garden be in the right. All men are com- petent to it, for all men’s intuitions are alike, however dif- ferent may be their development into living force under the influence of education and self-culture. Genius is not so rare as many suppose. Let a man assiduously apply him- self to Nature and Analogies, and he will find in his own heart, however unexpectedly, hidden stores of the envied power, ready to burst into lifelike seeds. The achievements of genius, even the very highest of them, come not of something peculiar to the man, but of something common to all men. The man of genius, restrictively so called, does but set forth, clearly and beautifully, what all the world knows already, and what every true reader of him feels to be equally his own. Other people differ from him not as being ignorant, but as having their knowledge confused, vague, and inarticulate. This is the reason why in the land where a great genius lived and wrote, we always feel at home. 430 PRINCIPLE OF PREFIGURATION. Tliongli we may never have quitted onr own shores, reading Virgil we feel that our native soil is beyond the Apennines. To the Englishman who loves him, Goetlie makes Germany England; to the German wlio has a heart, Shakspere makes England Germany. Generalization, accordingly, is not to be deemed purely a gift, a power vain to aspire to; what is intuitive, even in the greatest, is simply the capacity to gene- ralize. Whatever its particular bent, genius cannot do without study and culture, and these will often lift a man to the level of the reputed ‘‘Genius.” In no department of life do men rise to eminence who have not undergone a long and diligent preparation; for whatever be the difference in the mental powers of individuals, it is the cultivation of them that alone leads to distinction. Though few may even by culture be able to express, all can in some measure learn to feel and understand. This, if nothing further, is in the power and will of every man, and peculiarly of the analogist. He may begin where he pleases; Nature has everywhere a portico; Truth, like the world, is a sphere; dig wherever we may, we shall surely come to the centre if we dig deep enough. 246. That Nature is a magnificent Unity has long been perceived; also that its parts form a vast Chain or series, beginning with the atom of dust, and extending through minerals, plants, and animals up to man. Associated with these great principles, and springing out of them, is a third, the beautiful principle of Prefiguration. Everything in nature is a sign of something higher and more living than itself, to follow in due course, and in turn announce a yet higher one; the mineral foretells the plant, the plant fore- tells the animal, all things in their degree foretell mankind. “Nature,” says Henry Sutton, “before she developes the human being, projdiesies of that her grand and ultimate performance, and gives pictures and shows of her unborn NO MIMfCKY IN NATURE. 431 man-child, hinting at him, and longing and trying to realize him, before the time has come for his actual appearance.” As the Poet is not of one nature, but of Two, one concerned with the present, the other reaching forwards into the future, so IS it with the phenomena and forms of Life. Over and above their ordinary present use and meaning, they tell of other and greater things to come, anticipating them, and pointing to them. Ordinarily, the resemblances subsisting between the three kingdoms of nature are deemed mimicries; the higher manifestation is said to be “ imitated” by the lower, the phenomena of the vegetable being considered a degradation or humble copy of those of the animal, and those of the mineral world a degradation of those of the plant. This is wrong altogether ; it is viewing the column as commencing with the capital, and ending with the pedestal. Properly understood, there is no such thing as mimicry in nature; it is an inverted mode of observation that makes it seem as if there were; the motto is everywhere Excelsior: the like- nesses are not those of the living, smiling child and the wooden doll, but of the artist’s pencilled outline and finished picture in colored oils. In the inferior orders of creation it is not that the lamp of vitality is going out, but that we catch the first kindlings of that spark which glows with so noble a flame in the Aristotles, the Newtons, the Miltons, of our heaven-gazing race.” So full of interest are these prefigurations, so serviceable to a right conception both of the unity and of the chain of nature, that it will be best for them to receive our first consideration, letting the former and greater truths come after. None of these matters, it may be hinted, are for closet study; they concern nature as it flows fresh and immaculate from God, and only by con- versance with nature can they be justly apprehended. The man who would be truly instructed in her ways must seek 432 PREFIGURATIONS OF THE MINERAL KINGDOM. them, not by pursuit of his fancy in a chair, but with his eyes abroad. 247. Tlie Mineral kingdom, as the common basis of ma- terial nature, is also the first seat of prefiguration, which begins in the beautiful objects known as Crystals, including both the minerals proper, as the amethyst, lapis-lazuli, and emerald, and the infinite variety of chemical salts, as sul- phate of copper, prussiate and bichromate of potash. These, in the symmetry of their forms, the purity and often trans- lucent brightness of their colors, and their clustered mode of growth, give promise of the flowers of the plant, and are the blossoms of inorganic nature. Many substances- in crys- talizing, so dispose themselves as to predict the branching and general arrangement of the stems and foliage of plants. This we may see in native silver and native copper, which frequently assume most beautiful arborescent and frondose figures. In the freezing of water it is shown so strikingly, that while it transports the true lover of nature with de- light, even the dullest are attracted and pleased by it. The delicate silvery lace-work on the window-panes on frosty mornings is something more than a pretty accident. By no means a mere lusus naturce, (a very unmeaning expression,) not without a cause do we find it anticipating the forms of certain mosses, as those of the genus Hypnum, and in par- ticular the soft, feathery Hypnum proliferum of sylvan path- ways, giving not only the contour, but the very size. Nature places it there because in -her least as well as greatest works there is nothing so incongenial as an abrupt beginning, and nothing so grateful as to sound a “herald voice’’ of coming glory. Certain sea-weeds are prefigured by the frost-work no less strikingly than the mosses; in the Ptilota plumosa we have a remarkably beautiful instance, every pinnule of this charining plant ramifying at a given angle, and originating smaller ones of the same character. Sometimes the tracery PllEFIGUREMENTS OF VEGETABLE FORMS. 433 is curvilinear instead of angular, when it points to the luxuriant wavy leayes of the Acanthus, as chiselled for the crown of the Corinthian pillar. No branches of trees, or foliage, however graceful, can exceed the freedom and variety with which these lines are drawn. In other cases, when curved and frondose, they foreshadow the rounded masses that give such richness to the umbrageous elm and courtly chestnut. Jones of Nayland gives plates of some of the latter varieties in his Philosophical Disquisi- tions (p. 244). Scheuchzer, in that curious old book, the Herbarium Diluvianum (tab. 8, p. 40,) figures a specimen of another variety, singularly presignificant of the club- moss, or Lycopodium clavatum, formed, he tells us, on the inner surface of a glass globe in his museum, during the severe winter of 1709. Prefigurements of vegetable forms occur likewise on the pavement in winter mornings, deco- rating it even in the heart of foggy towns, with graceful arching sprays in basso relievo of brown ice. In their earlier stages these remind us of the foot-prints of the sea-gulls upon the sand. On the surface of very shallow water, as at the bottom of tubs, congelation not seldom repeats, on a grand scale, small portions of the flowerage of the window- panes. 'The prefiguration is then of the larger pinnate- leaved ferns, as the Polypodium aureum, especially as they appear when pressed and dried for the Hortus Siccus. In fossil ferns, from these latter having more the appearance of drawings, we may observe it more plainly still.* In the animal kingdom these forms are recapitulated in the flat, white, pectinated skeletons of such fishes as the sole; just as * An extraordinary example, singularly like the Pecopteris gigan- tea, occurred on the premises of the author, during the intense frost of February, 1855. The pinnae were fourteen inches long, and the entire ice-leaf five feet in circumference. 37 T 434 SNOW CRYSTALS. the angles and geometrical nicety of the proportions of single crystals, reappear in the honeycomb of the bee, and the hexagonal facets of insects' eyes. The stems of plants, or at least those of exogenous structure, are prefigured in that curious stalactitic variety of sulphate of baryta, called in Derbyshire ‘‘petrified oak." The horizontal section of this mineral, when polished, presents a rich brown, circular disk, and gives an exact picture of the concentric rings and medullary rays. Flowers are foretold again in Snow. Walking over the white mantle of mid-winter, we little think that at every step we annihilate a tiny garden. But so it is. Scattered over the surface of snow are innumerable glittering spangles, composed of six minute icicles, spreading starlike from a centre, the rays themselves often provided with smaller, secondary filaments, so as to resemble micro- scopic feathers. In the less developed stage we see Nature planning in them such of the lilies and other flowers of Endogens as when expanded are flat and radiate, the Orni- tliogalum imbellatum, or Star of Bethlehem, for instance: in the latter or more developed stage they are harbingers of that dainty little blossom of the Canadian woods, the Mitella mida, the petals of which are fimbriated and of the purest white. In the animal kingdom, the idea culminates in the star-fishes. The beauty of these unregarded little diamonds of the snow, though lost upon most men, has long been a delight to quick observers. Descartes gives rude drawings of them in the Meteora, and the ingenious but un- fortunate microscopist, Robert Hooke, in his Micrographia. (Plate viii., 1675.) Dr. Grew, author of that immortal work, the Anatomy of Plants, contributed a paper upon them to the Philosophical Transactions for 1673, and there is a notice of them somewhere by Linnaeus. It remained however for Scoresby, the arctic voyager, to point out their astonishing variety, Ilis figures amount to nearly a hundred, IMPORTANCE OF LITTLE THINGS. 435 and look as if designed from a kaleidoscope, all referable, nevertheless, to the common six-rayed star as their funda- mental form. It is from these figures that the Cyclopaedias and Galleries of Nature have all copied. The impression commonly entertained that the large diversity found by Scoresby in the Polar regions belongs only to such latitudes, is not correct. In the ‘‘Illustrated London News” for February, 1855, and again in the “Art Journal” for March, 1857, there are drawings by Mr. Glaisher, of the Greenwich Observatory, of no less than thirty-two varieties discovered in his own neighborhood, and doubtless many more may be found, and in any part of the country, if diligently sought, providing a Christmas and New-year’s pleasure for the in- telligent such as will outweigh whole nights of the mere temporicide popularly esteemed the heaii-ideal of winter pastime. They were no common eyes that first espied the snow-flowers. Most men can see large things, but it takes clever ones to see the little. Nor were they common minds. To take the simple, the homely, the unheeded, and show mankind how to find in it a source of new, rational, and un- sophisticated enjoyment, is not the least of the benign func- tions that belong to Genius. To learn how to see and de- light in little things as v/ell as large, is in fact, to make no slight progress both in true intelligence and in aptitude for genuine pleasure. Many laugh at the idea of being pleased with little things. “Little things,” they say, “please little minds.” They should remember that the great mass of the population of our planet consists of the merest pigmies, diminutive birds and fishes, tiny insects, animalcules only visible with a microscope, so that to turn away from little things is to be indifferent to almost everything the world contains. Besides, with Uranus eighty times greater than the whole earth, Neptune a hundred and fifty times greater, Saturn more than seven hundred times, and Jupiter more 436 PREriOURATION IN PLANTS. tFian fourteen hundred, it is rather inconsistent to talk about littleness in the objects of a world itself so puny. 248. The enterprise of plants is one of the most wonder- ful things in nature. Irrespectively of their immense pre- significance of Animal life, which infinitely exceeds that of the mineral world with regard to the vegetable, there is a continual and ardent emulation of all higher parts and forms by those which in function or development are lower. Leaves, for example, which, as we all know, are ordinarily of some shade of green, in many species paint themselves with the most vivid and beautiful colors. The leaves of several kinds of Amaranthus, as the Prince’s-feather and Love-lies-bleeding, even when they first creep out of the ground, are brilliant red, announcing the blossom from afar; those of the Caladium bicolor, Cissies discolor, Physurus pictus, Ancectochilus argenteus and setaceus, Plectranthus con- color, and many others, are variegated with all the hues of summer gardens, and outshine tens of thousands of actual flowers. In the genus Tillandsia they are often striped as if with rainbows. It is not implied, or at least it is not a rule, that richly-tinted leaves predict richly-tinted flowers as coming by and by upon the same stem, Prefigurement may or may not refer thus particularly; its tidings are for ■ the most part of a future glory in nature as a whole. The flowers of plants are foretold also by the bracteas and even by the calyces of certain kinds. Such is the case with the Euphorbia splendens, several species of Salvia, the Hydran- gea, and the white-winged Musscenda frondosa. By means of their veins and other peculiarities, leaves in other cases ap[)rize us of the very configuration of the tree they are building up. The angle at which the veins diverge is often the same as that which the branches make with regard to the trunk; where the leaves arc sessile, the stem is usually set with branches down to the very ground; whore they are PREFIGURATION IN PLANTS. 437 petiolate, the stem is also naked to a considerable height. ‘‘So far/’ say Dickie and McCosh, “as we have been able to generalize a very extensive series of facts before us, we are inclined to lay down the provisional law that the whole leafage coming out at one place on the stem corresponds to the whole plant, and that the venation of each single leaf corresponds to the ramification of a branch.”* In certain mosses, as the Hypnum dendroides and Hypnum alopecurum, may be found miniatures of every tree in an arboretum. 249. The presignificance of Animal forms and economy by plants extend to the whole of their organic functions, many of their very organs, even to their spontaneous move- ments, their habits and qualities. As regards structure, the soft parts of the animal body are foretold by the succulent portion of the plant ; the veins and blood by the ducts and vessels, with their rills of sap; the bones by its strong skele- ton of woody fibre.f What is the nature of vegetable Feeding lias been shown in a former chapter. It may be added that the eating of organized food, esteemed so pecu- liarly distinctive of animals, has its prefigurement in the Drosera and Dioncea; those curious little plants already mentioned on p. 63, which by means of appendages to their * Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation, Book 2, chap. 2, (1856.) See which excellent work for abundant illustration of the facts adverted to. f Nowhere in nature are there more finished examples of skele- tons than occur in plants. Those furnished by the capsules of the Stramonium, the Henbane, and the Campanula, and by the leaves of the holly, poplar, and Indian fig, when grouped and glass-shaded like wax-flowers, are fit ornaments for the most recherche drawing- room. The best are obtained by artificial maceration, hut singularly beautiful specimens often occur among the natural relics of the au- tumn. The Indian fig-leaves are those imported from China. 37 488 SLEEP OF PLANTS. leaves, entrap the smaller kinds of insects, as flies are on snared in spiders' webs, and then appear to suck and ab- sorb their juices. From June to August, Avhen the English species of these vegetable carnivora are most active, there is scarcely a leaf in which we may not see either a recently- caught victim, or the desiccated relics of a former one. Vegetable Sleep is that relaxation of the vital processes which is indicated by the folding together and drooping of the leaves as night approaches, prefiguring the listlessness and supine attitude of the dormant animal, and further, in the beautiful jflienomenon of the closing, eyelid-like, of the petals of the flowers, so charming to watch in the stillness of summer twilight. All plants do not exhibit these pheno- mena, but there are probably none which do not experience a periodical repose (at least when they are in a state of growth and inflorescence), eminently beneficial to their health, whether marked by external change or not. It is not to be understood that there is actual sleep in plants. Real sleep occurs only where animal functions are super- added to simply vegetative ones. The classes of plants wherein the prefiguration of sleep is chiefly conspicuous are the Leguminosse and the Compositae, the former closing their leaves, and the latter their flowers. Strikingly beau- tiful examples occur also in the water-lilies, the crocus, and the poppy, lulled as it were by its own Lethean balm. Those plants which do not open their flowers till sunset, as the Evening-primrose, or until night is far advanced, as the Cereus grandiflorus, seem to be the harbingers in the vege- table world, of those nocturnal birds, animals, and insects which are active only after dark, when all others are asleep. The Night-scented stock, and other flowers which are fra- grant only or chiefly in the evening, are the heralds of the nightingale. Certain other ])lants agree with certain other kinds of birds in being peculiarly matutinal. Go out as REPRODUCTION OF PLANTS. 439 early as we will, we find the delicate white bells of the wild convolvulus in the dewy hedge, and the rich imperial purple and crimson ones in the garden, just as we are never too soon for the chaffinch, the blackbird, and the lark. More wonderfully yet is Procreation foretold by plants. The ap- paratus, the mode, the circumstances, the results, all are de- licately, but explicitly and fully announced. The lower kinds of plants, as fungi and lichens, wherein distinctness of sexual organization is imperfect, point to sponges and their congeners; the higher kinds, as roses and apple-trees, which have male and female as plainly marked as in mankind, prefigure in this respect, mammals, birds, insects, and all the nobler animate beings. Every individual flower on a given plant is a fore-shining of the nest of the bird, and the lair of the quadruped, and consummately, in its beautiful, silken, shielding petals, of the inmost curtained sanctuary of married love. The very colors and the fragrance per- form a part in the exquisite proem, being to the flower what sensation is to the creature, and emotion and sentiment to man. It is by reason of what it foretells, that the flower is so lovely. So near is the plant lifted towards the animal world, during the period of its sexual activity, that it be- comes illuminated by the light of human love, reflecting the loveliness of the higher nature, like woods made musical by the descent into them of the singing birds. As with Sleep, there is no genuine sex in plants ; this belongs purely to the animal world. The hymeneal hour gone by, and fertiliza- tion accomplished, the rudimentary seed begins to form, giving a presage of antenatal existence, followed in turn by a prefigurement of parturition in the bursting of the pod, and the escape of the ripened seeds. Finally, the seed itself, while in course of formation, is connected with the ovarium by a funis ; when detached, it is marked with an umbilical scar Even lactation is prefigured in plants. The germi- 440 ANIMAL FORMS FORKTOLI) RY PLANTS. jiatiiig embryo of the seed, too small and tender to live by itself, has vegetable mammae provided for it in the cotyle- dons, which, white and rounded, nourish it with their sweet, milk-like contents. In the two large white symmetrical halves of the almond, the filbert, the acorn, the bean, we see this exemplified in perfection. They are no part of the fu- ture plant, which grows entirely out of the little hinge-like body lying at the point where they unite. Everywhere in nature the mother’s bosom is foretold. The streams which ‘‘ give drink to every beast of the field, where the wild asses quench their thirst,” are its adumbrations in the great world of inorganic nature ; to flow with milk and honey” is the poetical or natural metaphor for the irrigation of a thirsty land with nutrient rivers. Rocks and towering mountains have a terrible and romantic grandeur, but the beauty of earth lies in those round, gently-swelling hills and eminences which the French so appropriately call mamelons. Not that the figure is a modern one. The Greeks termed such hills rtrdot and fiaaroc. A mound of this form at Samos, Calli- machus calls the breast of Parthenia.” 250. The special prefigurations of animal ideas by plants are no less striking than the general. Thus, in the large, white, ovoid berry of the Solamim Melongena or “ Egg- plant,” we have the egg of the domestic fowl ; in the pods of certain leguminous plants, bivalve shells, with their occu- pants; in the stem of the Testudinaria, a tortoise; in the seed of the Ophiocaryon, a coiled-up serpent, with glaring eyes, ready to dart iqion its prey. The caterpillar is seen in tlie pod of the Scorpiurus; the antlers of the stag in the leaves of the AcrodicJmm alcic.orne; the cocoa-nut gives tid- ings of tlie round brown liead and comical visage of the moid-v '. TIMES AND SEASONS. PART I. While to the poet and the thoughtful man the changes of Times and Seasons are in the highest degree beautiful and suggestive, even to the most indifferent and selfish they are surrounded with an agreeable interest. None view their progress without regard, however little they may be attracted by their sweet pictures and phenomena, or moved by the amenities and wisdom of their ministry. This is be- cause the changes incidental to nature are, on the one hand, a kind of counterpart or image of the occurrences and vicis- situdes of human life ; and on the other, the circumstances by which its business and pleasures are in large measure suggested and controlled. The consummation of the old year, and the opening of the new, brings with it, accord- ingly, a fine significance, and a pleasurable importance. So, in their degree, the transitions of Winter into Spring, of Spring into Summer, of Summer into Autumn ; and so, in their degree, the alternations of day and night. The longer the interval, the more interesting is the change. The close of the year occupies the foremost place in this universal interest, from its completing a well-defined and comprehensive cycle of natural mutations. It is by this circumstance rendered an appropriate epoch for the mea- surement of life and being ; and hence there fasten on it peculiar momentousness and solemnity, which remain inse- 46 545 546 TIMES AND SEASONS. parably attached though the season he unknown or forgot- ten. Days and nights follow too rapidly to serve such a purpose; and the endings of months and seasons are insuffi- ciently distinct, except as regards Autumn, which in its ma- turity and fruits fulfills the very cycle in question. Only as the result of these mutations does the year exist. Were there no primroses to die with the spring, no lilies to vanish with the summer; were there not sequences of leaf and flower, sunshine and starlight, there would even be no Time. For Time, like Space, pertains but to the material circum- ference of creation, that is to the visible half of the universe, and is only ajopreciable through its medium. It is by ob- jective nature alone that the ideas both of Time and Space are furnished, and they are sustained in us only so long as we are in contact with it. The movements of the heavenly bodies contribute the most exact and obvious data, because expressly given “ for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.”* But the heavens are not our only time- piece. Another is spread over the surface of the earth in its living products. The phenomena connected with plants and the habits of the lower animals, constitute in themselves a complete system of chronometry ; indicating not merely seasons, but even days and hours. In the times of the leaf- ing of trees, the blooming of flowers, the ripening of fruits, the appearance of insects, the singing and nest-building of * The fine poetic fancy of the ancients deified the various divi- sions of time, and placed them as attendants on the Sun, himself a god of tlie highest rank. See the beautiful description in Ovid^s Metamoridioses, ii. 26-30, where they are represented as standing round his throne, and wearing the insignia proper to their offices in tlie economy of nature. Hence come the innumerable allusions in poetry to the Ilours,^^ as goddesses : — ^^Tlie Graces, and the rosy-bosomcd Ilours.’^ — Milton. TIMES AND SEASONS. 547 birds, the departure and return of the migratory kinds, and of every other such incident of unmolested nature, there is nothing chanceful or uncertain. Every event tran- spires at a fixed point in the series of changes it belongs to. So precise, in particular, are the hours at which differ- ent kinds of flowers open, that it is not only possible, but easy to form a “ dial of Flora,” by planting them in the or- der of their expansion. A very little botany will enable any one to notice, during the early part of the day, espe- cially before the dew is off the grass, how one flower antici- pates another. And not only as to opening in the morning, but as to closing in the afternoon and evening. Nothing is more pleasant to the lover of nature, than to watch their gradual retirement to rest, and the wonderful diversities of mode in which they shut their petals. The curious coinci- dences between many of these phenomena, (as of certain birds returning from their winter quarters at the identical times when certain flowers come into bloom) have an espe- cial interest, seeing that they not only indicate times, but supply striking illustrations of the lovely sympathies of na- ture, for in nature there is nothing without a friend. Celes- tial and atmospheric phenomena, if they have fewer of the charms of variety, in their splendors compensate it tenfold. How beautiful to note the phases of the moon, the chame- leon tintings of the sky, the traveling of the planets, and the circling round the pole of the seven bright stars of the sleepless Bear! With what gladness and enthusiasm, too, in the cold, inanimate winter, we view the rising of Orion, and his brilliant quarter of the heavens. The cheerlessness of the earth is forgotten in the magnificence overhead, and we thank God for unfolding so much glory. Every event, moreover, having its own poetical relations, at once refreshes the heart, and places before the mind some elegant item in tlie innumerable harmonies of the universe. In the perpe- 548 TIMES AND SEASONS. tual sparkle of the Bear is presented an image of the ever- wakeful eyes of Providence; and in the alternate waxing and waning of the moon, a beautiful picture of the oscilla- tions in man’s fortunes. Hence we find Plutarch using the latter to describe the chequered life of Demetrius ; and Dante, to pourtray the varying fortunes of Florence : — E come volger del ciel della luna Ciiopre ed iscuopre i liti senza posa, Cosi fa di Fiorenza la Fortura. {ParadisOf xvi., 82-84.) (As the revolution of the moon^s heavenly sphere hides and reveals the strand unceasingly, so fortune deals with Florence.) The regularity with which the phenomena of nature recur, and their determinate and unvarying character, are ex- pressed even in many names. Spring is literally the season of growth; summer that of sunshine; autumn (from augeo) that of increase or fertility; winter that of the “windy storm and tempest.” All languages possess equivalent terms. “Zif,” the name of the second Hebrew month, or from the new moon of May to that of June, signifies literally, “the splendor of flowers.” “Choreph,” the name for au- tumn, in the same language, means “the gathering season,” or time of harvest and fruits. The names given to the months by the French Revolutionists of 1789, every one will remember as in deference to the same instinctive prin- ciple. Times, years, seasons, accordingly, are not to be esteemed a part of creation, but simply an accident or result of it. Our personal experiences concur with nature in testifying this, for to no two men has time the same duration, nor does any individual reckon it always by the same dial. To the slotliful, time has the feet of a snail; to the diligent, the wings of an eagle. Impatience lengthens, eiiioyment TIMES AND SEASONS. 549 shortens it. The unhappy and desolate see nothing hut weary tedium; with the cheerful it glides like a stream. ‘‘The time/’ says the unhappy poet, in his wretched exile, “goes so slowly, you would think it was standing still. The summer does not shorten my nights, nor the winter my days. Do the usual periods really perform their wonted courses? Everything is protracted with my eyes.”* How different when we are satisfied and glad ! Let us go amid new and delightful sceneries, such as vividly excite and animate us, and when over, the days seem to have been hours, the weeks to have been days. Let us retire into the quiet, secluded sanctuaries of thought, losing ourselves in memory or hope, and how complete again is the departure of all conception of either time or space. As in Dreamland, distance col- lapses, and years and life-times contract into a few shining moments. So, too, when pursuing occupations under the influence of deep feeling, — “Jacob served seven years for Rachel, yet they seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had to her.” In Milton, Eve beautifully says to Adam, — With thee conversing, I forget all time; All seasons, and their change, all please alike. Time, therefore, as in reference to material existence it simply denotes change, in reference to the spiritual or inner life, is but another name for emotional states or attitudes. The man who not only feels to, but actually does live longest, in other words, sees most time, is he who, taking God for a sweet, guiding, and enveloping thought, and quick to read Nature, receives from it the greatest number of impress^ sions. Natural mutations are emblems both of the external or * Ovid. Tristia, Book v.. Elegy x. 650 TIMES AND SEASONS. corporeal life, and of the inner or spiritual life. And this is equally the case whether the history of a year or of a day be taken. For nature, though she seems endlessly diversi- fied, proceeds on but few methods, of which her diversities are varied expressions. Whatever department we may se- lect, whether organization, music, or language, the pheno- mena of life or those of insensible matter, one or two lead- ing ideas are all that can be discriminated. Not that the talent of nature, though great for sjiecies, is poor for genera, because nature, as a manifestation of the Infinite, is com- petent, necessarily, to ex 2 )ress his infinite attributes. It is that with a view to presenting a sublime and intelligible unity, such as man’s mind shall apprehend with profit and delight, she better loves to repeat, over and over again, a few fixed and elegant designs, than to amaze and confound with an endless multiplicity. When, therefore, from the outward exjoression, we penetrate towards the interior idea^ it is always to find some old, familiar fashion; and to learn that shapes and complexions are but liveries or costumes appropriate to their several occasions. The history and lapse of a day agree, accordingly, with the history of a year, of which the day is a miniature. Winter corresponds with night, summer with noon, spring with morning, whence the beautiful phrase in 1 Sam. ix. 26, “the spring of the day,” and in Lucretius, the equivalent facies verna diei (i. 10.) The history of a life-time conforms in turn with both the year and the day, as shown in our speaking of life’s morning, noon, and evening; of its spring, summer, autumn, and winter; its April, its May, and its December. For all or- ganized beings are but successions of phenomena, commenc- ing, like the year, in darkness and apparent passivity, and ending in surrender to the effacing fingers of decay. “Even- ing,” says Aristotle, “has the same relation to day that old age has to life. Therefore evening may be called the old TIMES AND SEASONS. 551 age of the day, and old age the evening of life, or, as it is styled by Empedocles, ‘the setting of life.’ ” Nothing has more jileased the poets than to descant on the similitudes so strikingly displayed, especially on behalf of the four seasons. Ovid, for instance, in that extraordinary catalogue of muta- tions, the fifteenth book of the Metamorphoses; Young, in the sixth book of the Night Thoughts; and Thomson, at the conclusion of his “Winter:” — Behold, fond man ! See here thy pictured life ! Pass some few years. Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer’s ardent strength. Thy sober Autumn, fading into age. And pale concluding Winter comes at last. And shuts the scene. Prose literature likewise affords numerous allusions to these analogies. They are a constant subject also with sculptors and painters, whose highest function is faithfully to repro- duce in objective forms what the poetic faculty seeks else- where to delineate in words. The famous riddle of the Sphynx, the solution of which by OEdipus cost her her life, will occur to the recollection of every one — “ What animal is that which in the morning goes upon four legs, at mid-day upon two, in the evening upon three?” On the identifica- tion of youth with Spring was no doubt founded the ancient belief that it was in the Spring that the world was created : a notion supported, among the moderns, by Stukeley, in his chapter called “Cosmogonia, or the World’s Birth-day.” {Palceographia Sacra, p. 44.) It needs no very deep science to perceive that if the world were created in any season, it must have been created in all four, since it is always Spring somewhere, always Summer, Autumn, and Winter, in one part of the globe or another. If it be intended merely to assert that it was Spring in the latitude where our first parents began their lives, then, perhaps, the fancy may be 652 TIMES AND SEASONS. allowed. According to Venerable Bede, the question was first determined at a council held at Jerusalem, about tlie year 200. After a learned discussion, reported verbatim, it. is finally decided that the world’s birth-day was Sunday, April 8th, or at the vernal equinox, and at the full of the moon! {Opera, tom. 2, pp. 346, 347. Ed. Basil, 1563.) Dwelling as we do, in the heart of the material and fugi- tive, it is perfectly natural that winter and night should be regarded as representative of the last stage of our existence. Yet their truest agreement is not with decay. It is rather with the darkness and passivity which preliminate life, and out of which life springs. Everywhere in creation the dim and shapeless is prior in point of time. The universal law is that the passive shall precede the active, ignorance know- ledge, indifference love. This is why the narrative of the creation opens with saying that the earth was without form and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep; and why among the ancients. Night was finely styled ‘‘mother of all things.” With him enthroned. Sat sable- vested Night, eldest of things. The cosmogony of the Greeks, as given by Hesiod, and of every ancient nation of which any records survive, opens with darkness, out of whose womb presently proceeds light. Such is the order acknowledged, indeed, by all the greatest poets who have ornamented the world. What a fine line is that in Mephistopheles’ address to Faust, when he first introduced himself, — Ein Tlieil der Finstermiss die sich das Licht gebar. (Part of the darkness which brought forth Light!) If we would observe a philosophic order, winter, therefore, should stand first, not last, in the scheme of the seasons, as TIMES AND SEASONS 553 among the ancient Egyptians, with whom harmonies were an exact science, and who drew the sun at the winter solstice as an infant, at the vernal equinox as a youth, at the summer solstice as a man of middle age, and at the autumnal equi- nox as one in his maturity.* The other seasons would then fall into their rightful places. Autumn, or the period of ripe- ness, crowning the noble annals. For autumn, in turn, it is far less just to regard as emblematic of bodily decrepitude, than of consummation, maturity and riches. Job gives a beautiful example of its legitimate symbolic use when, recalling the days of his prosperity, he denominates them his (choreph,) literally, as above mentioned, his time of gathering in fruits. The authorized version neutralizes this eloquent figure by translating it “ in the days of my youthJ’ But that the word here certainly signifies Autumn, is plain from the remainder of the chapter, even without consulting its etymology. Pindar uses Autumn for the perfection of physical beauty. (Isth. 2, 5. Nem. 5, 6.) Sir Thomas Browne applies the same name to the Resurrection. The dating of the year from a day in the depth of winter is itself a testimony to the true position of the seasons in question. By virtue of the primitive relations which so wonderfully link the spiritual and the material, the growth of the year has precisely the same analogies with the development of the intellect and affections, as with the history of the body. Winter answers to their germ-stage, summer to their flow- ers, autumn to their maturity. Hence the elegant and fa- miliar metaphors by which the first buddings of the intellect and affections are called their Spring, The Greek poets not infrequently put Autumn, in like manner, for ripened intel- ^ Macrobius, Saturnalia, Lib. 1, cap. 21. Y 47 554 IIMES AND SEASONS. ligence and wisdom, as ^scliylus, in his tragedy of the Suppliants.* Gifted with the sight of these fine analogies, few things are more delightful to the accomplished mind than to note the early primrose and anemone, the wood-sor- rel, and the young, uncurling ferns. It sees in them, and in all delicate buds, the pictorial counterparts of its own first steps — images of the pretty little flowers of fancy and afiection put forth from the heart of a child. The same cir- cumstances originate an important part of the pleasure with which the mind regards the verdure of trees newly-leafed, the activities and the music of birds, and the thousand other fair conditions of the year in its adolescence. It sees re- flected in them its own felt progress. In that perfect sea of rich poetry, Festus,’’ both the physical and the spiritual symbolism of the year are given in a single passage : — We women have four seasons, like the year. Our spring is in our lightsome, girlish days. When the heart laughs within us for sheer joy. Summer is when we love and are beloved ; Autumn w^hen some young thing with tiny hands. And rosy cheeks, and flossy, tendrilled locks, Is wantoning about us day and night. And Winter is when those we loved have perished. For the heart ices then. Some miss one season, some another ; this Shall have them early ; and that, late. The soul, as it quickens towards God (which is quite a different thing from growth in the loves and intellectualities of the simply secular life), similarly views itself reflected wherever the vernal is gushing forth, and loves to think how profound is the dependence on Flim who changeth the times and the seasons, who giveth wisdom to the wise, 998 , 1015 . TIMES AND SEASONS. 555 and revealeth the deep and secret things.” A more com- plete and admirable image than is here presented, it would be difficult to find. For like the seeds and roots which lie hidden in the cold, bare earth during winter, full of splen- did capacity and life, are the latent desires in the una- wakened soul for what is good and heavenly, inherited from the golden age ; and when once quickened, nothing can re- press their energy, or forbid their shooting into a luxuriant and flowery vesture for the surface late so naked. We should never desire to be regenerated were it not for the re- mains of original innocence, which thus repose, like sleeping angels, in our hearts. Martineau appropriately opens his beautiful book, Endeavors after the Christian Life,” with sketching this truest spring-time of the soul, this beginning of its real, productive life. “ The thoughts which constitute religion are too vast and solemn to remain subordinate. They are germs of a growth which, with true nurture, must burst into independent life, and overspread the whole soul. When the mind, beginning to be busy for itself, ponders the ideas of the infinite and eternal, it detects, as if by sudden inspiration, the immensity of the relations which it bears to God and immortality. The old formulas of religious in- struction break their husk, and give forth the seeds of won- der and of love. Everything that before seemed great and worthy is dwarfed ; and secular affinities sink into nothing- ness compared with the heavenly world which has been dis- covered. There is a period when earnest spirits become thus possessed ; disposed to contrast the grandeur of their new ideal with the littleness of all that is actual, and to look with a sublimated feeling, which in harsher natures passes into contempt, on pursuits and relations once sufficient for the heart’s reverence.” ‘‘ Pray that your flight be not in the winter , means before the frosts of indifiTerence to God have melted.” 556 TIMES AND SEASONS. The sequence of morning to night pourtrays precisely the same facts, because each perfect and independent day of twenty-four hours is a year in little, and therefore the ana- logue of the entire spiritual history. We speak, accord- ingly, of the night of ignorance, the night of superstition, the dawn of reason, the dawn of the understanding. Hence, too, the innumerable beautiful figures in which these things are spoken of under the equivalent names of “ darkness ” and ‘‘ light.” As with the transition from ignorance into knowledge, so with the nobler progress which introduces us to God. Before we know him, it is night, afterwards it is morning and day. It is in the night that he comes to us, just as it is during the night of nature that the sun ap- proaches (for it is not morning till he is risen), whence the beautiful figure in the parable, that the cry of the bride- groom’s coming is heard at “ midnight.” It was for tht same reason that the angels announced the nativity to the shepherds by night rather than by day — a ministry sweetly renewed, with all its heavenly light and music, wherever the ‘‘flocks” of the heart are seen to be watched and cherished. To the same class of facts belong the circumstances of our Lord being born into the material world in the depth of winter ; and of the crucifixion taking place during chilly, wintry weather, as shown by the people kindling a fire and warming themselves. These are not mere accidents in the history, but representative occurrences inseparably con- nected with the spiritual ones they accompany. In several ancient languages the name of God is literally “ light,” or “ morning.” Such is the case with the Greek 0soc and the Latin Deus (whence the French Dieu, and our own word Deity, ^ both of which, together with the name of the old In- dian god Dyaus, rest on the Sanscrit root div, to shine or irradiate. The Greek Zeut; and the Latin J'l^-piter are from TIMES AND SEASON^. 557 the same source, by permutation of sounds, as shown by the inflections AcFo^y Jovis, &g., and by the derivatives divum (whence divine and divinity) and dies, the day, literally the shining.’’ Jupiter, and the equivalent Diespater, Diespiter, signify, literally, ‘^father of light.” With the same root are doubtless connected the Celtic di, dian, and the Anglo-Saxon dcegan, whence our current daw7i and day. But more than one such day is needful to regenerate a man. He must go through many successive stages, intro- duced to one day after another, through the medium of many nights of labor and struggle. And that we may be familiarized with it from the first, this is just what is depicted at the very entrance to God’s Word. In their ‘‘evenings and mornings,” and the accompanying serial creations, the opening verses of Genesis sublimely picture the development of the various emotions and perceptions proper to the Christian character, which gradually open out, like the days of a week. For there are no leaps in the history of spiritual progress, — no violent transitions. There can be no seventh day’s rest in heaven without six preceding ones of work, which every man must perform for himself, at God’s suggestion, and with God’s help. “Let there be light” is only the introductory act, — the showing the way. At first man is not conscious how much is needed of him. It seems sufficient that light has broken. He knows not how bare and desolate is his heart, nor that, until a third, and a fourth, and a fifth day shall have clothed it with spiritual counterparts of the “living creatures,” the “grass,” the “herbs,” and the “fruit-trees,” it will be only a desert, and can neither “rejoice” nor “blossom as the rose.” Of such a course of developments, accordingly, growth in religion is made uj), each stage having its own evening and morning, just as each year of life has its winter and summer. For “evening” here signifies, not the twilight of a day that is 47 * 558 TIMES AND SEASONS. past, but the whole of the dark portion of the twenty-four hours, and ‘'morning” the whole of the light portion. The two together make up a complete period in the history, just as a night and a day combined, (the latter dating from midnight,) make up each of the three hundred and sixty-five “days” of the solar year. The creation of man comes last, because it is not until such a series of developments has taken place, that the intellect and afiections attain that upright and noble attitude in reference to God, which constitutes genuine manliness. PART II. Times and seasons correspond with the life of man in a twofold manner. First, there is the image of his gradual development, both as to body and soul, presented, as above described, in each complete and independent year and day. Secondly, there is the image of his innumerable changes and vicissitudes, presented in the varied qualities and occurrences of seasons, days, and hours in general. For as with winter and summer, light and darkness, heat and cold, rain and sunshine, clouds and azure, music and silence, — for even the wind and the waters are still at times, — so with health and sickness, hunger and content, fatigue and vigor; no state or condition is lasting. Down even to the minute and secret phenomena of what the physiologists call molecular death,” namely, the continual decay and replacement of the animal tissues. Change is the universal condition of existence. And while so marked a feature of the inanimate w^orld, and of the animal life, infinitely more true of the soul, because of its infinitely higher capabilities and senses. At one moment buoyant with hope, at another depressed by disappointment or misgivings; cheerful to-day, mournful to-morrow; in the course even of a few minutes it will run through a long series of intensest emotions. Change, accordingly, has in all ages been the chosen theme of the moralist and the preacher; while, as at once the most solemn yet most animating, the most sad yet most beautiful subject on which the human mind can dwell, poetry and philosophy have ever held a friendly 559 560 TIMES AND SEASONS. rivalry in describing its loveliness, and interpreting its les- sons.* Well styled by Feltlnini, ‘‘the great lord of the uni- verse,” all the best charms of objective nature, and all the noblest attitudes of the intellect and affections owe their being to its magic touch. Incessantly at work, transfiguring, dissolving, and recombining, it makes the physical world one vast kaleidoscope wherein new and unthought-of charms are brought to view with every turn of day and season. Changed, not destroyed, our lament for the beautiful as it glides from out our grasp, is but to lament that brighter things are coming. For there is no truth more sublime than that decay, death, and disappearance are not annihilation, but simply the attendants on change of form. Annihilation is an impossible thing. Nor is there any truth more consola- tory. The chrysalis is the cradle of the butterfly at the same moment that it is the tomb of the grub; the flowers of the sunnner cease to smile, that the fruits of autumn may step forth. So with the changes of the inner life. For as changes and contrasts are the springs of all our happiness and enjoyment in connection with the external life, as well as productive of the most charming aspects and conditions of nature ; so is it from changes in our spiritual states that we acquire true wisdom, and that our affections become in- vited into their loveliest -and most sacred channels. No one, for instance, is capable of truly and heartily sympa- thizing with the troubles of another, until he has himself been touched by sorrow. How beautiful and pathetic, be- cause so faithful to nature, is that passage in the first JEneid * As beautiful for its succinctness, as the 15th book of the Meta- morphoses is remarkable for its detail, on the subject of change, is the fine passage in the Oedipus Coloneus, of Sophocles, beginning 0 ) (pfKrad Aiyeiog nai, (G07-C15.) With the former Compare Lucretius, “Mutat enini. niundi naturani totius setas.’^ &c. Lib. v. 826-834. TIMES AND SEASONS.^ 561 where the gentle but unfortunate Dido speaks for the genu ineness of her sympathy on the ground of her own experi- ence of misfortune. It is, indeed, by reason of this neces- sity, that the laws and phenomena of the natural world are as we find them. Throughout the universe, whatever ex- ists, exists not so much for its own sake, as for the sake of something higher and nobler than itself. Night does not unroll its shades solely that the body may rest and sleep ; nor does winter diffuse its frosts only that the trees and plants may hybernate, and the soul refit itself for feeding them. They have a nobler use than this. They have les- sons to give. They exist, like all other natural mutations, that they may be emblematic of the vicissitudes so import- ant to the spirit; and that from studying the glory and beauty which arise from them, w^e may learn what is the end and promise of our own. ‘‘We often live under a cloud,’’ says a thoughtful writer, “ and it is well for us that we should. Uninterrupted sunshine would parch our hearts : we want shade and rain to cool and refresh them.” If this be true of the secular side of our constitution, how much more so of the heavenly ! It shows why Scripture history (which has a didactic intent throughout) is one continuous detail of misfortune and success, trouble and consolation ; — the narrative, for instance, of the pilgrimage of the Israel- ites, universally acknowledged to be typical of the way of regeneration. In this, every one is beset by hindrances and temptations, which, though sorely oppressive while they last, nevertheless give place in turn to triumph. The hunger and thirst, and bitter streams, all show what must be anti- cipated, but no less so the supply of food, and the sweeten- ing of the waters. It is a happy thing for a man to feel famished, and that the waters are bitter, for it is the sign of an amending nature, and leads him to cry to God for help. If we are not often so impelled, it is a proof that we y 662 TIMES AND SEASONS. are but little advanced upon our journey. There can be no virtue or gladness without trial and suffering in the first place. There is no buying corn of Joseph till there has been a famine in the land ; nor can any man know what are the green pastures and the still rivers, till he has been in the valley of the shadow of death. God cannot lead him thither till he has felt how weak he is in himself. Until this experience shall liave been gone through, they are a mere mirage of the imagination. It must needs be that the Son of Man suffer before he enter into his glory.” In its aptitude for grievances, temptations, and perplexities, conjoined with its free-will, the spirit of man is constituted, accordingly in the very best manner possible for urging him on towards heaven. Though they are painful to him, they are privileges.* That was a deep insight into the economy of Providence which saw that — Sweet are the uses of adversity. Had Flavius Boethius never been imprisoned by Theodoric, he had never written his Consolations of Philosophy.” To a prison also we owe the Pilgrim’s Progress.” As with numbers of other splendid truths, we uncon- sciously express the excellency of alternatian in various words of common discourse, as temper, temperament, tem- perature. For all these terms have an immediate affinity with the Latin tempus, “time.” Literally, therefore, to “temper,” signifies to combine or intermingle different * In reference to these matters may he quoted Lord Bacon’s ad- mirable precept that “we should practice all things at two several times, the one when the mind is best disposed, the other when it is worst disposed ; that by the one you may gain a great step; by the othc^r you may work out the knots and stonds of the mind.” (Adv. of Learnings Book ii.) TIMES AND SEASONS. 563 states or conditions, just as seasons, days and nights are in- termingled by nature. And as the object of such intermin- gling is to benefit and ameliorate, the idea of benevolence incorporates with it. Thus, ‘‘ God tempers the wind to ihe shorn lamb.’’ Virgil often uses the word in this way. When the sunburnt land is refreshed by water, he says that ‘‘ arentia temperat arm,” ‘‘ it tempers the thirsty fields and a little further on, ‘‘ cum frigidus aera Vespera temperat,^’ “ when cool evening tempers the air.” The sun, Cicero finely calls mundi temperatio, the temperer of the world.” As a substantive, “ temper ” denotes our general character or dispo- sition, because compounded of various ingredients. Accord- ing to the predominance of one element or another, it is good temper, or ill temper, mild temper, or harsh temper. To be ‘‘ temperate ” is not to remain in any one season or state, but to give everything its proper meed of attention, in deference not only to the rules of health, but to the instructions of the Preacher, when he tells us that there is a time for every- thing,” and that “ God hath made everything beautiful (or good) in its season.” The “ intemperate” man, whether in things of body or mind, is he who, bestowing his love exclu- sively on the spring or the summer, in the morning or the evening, refuses to enjoy more than a single season ; and thereby neutralizes both the pleasures he selects, and the kind offices of the remainder of the year. Who so much enjoys the calm, sweet friendship of the summer, as he who has fought with the asperities of winter ? Temperature,” in its primitive sense, denotes that agreeable condition of the atmosphere which results from the due admixture of heat and cold. We use the word “season” in much the same way, and for a similar reason, season being a kind of synonym of time. 564 TIMES AND SEASONS. “ Earthly power doth then show likest God^s Wlien mercy seasons justice.’^ Experiencing the mutations of nature, then, in our own daily history, and vividly so as regards the spiritual half of our being, the names of the divisions of times and seasons become the appropriate metaphors wherein to speak of our varied states of heart and mind. There is no other lan- guage for the purpose. Nor are any figures referring to time so frequent, from the circumstance of the present de- partment of the correspondence having been far more largely recognized than that which regards the symbolism of the year in the collective; which arises in turn, from the fact that men are prone to affix their attention to passing events and contiguous objects, rather than to rise to the panoramas of philosophy. Spring, for instance, is everywhere identified with hope. Men see that in all their qualities the two things are naturally and inseparably ac- cordant; and this is probably a reason why descriptions of spring are more plentiful than those of any other sea- son. For Hope, the only heritage of many men, and the light, life, and nepenthe of all, is naturajly foremost among the emotions, and the most agreeable to think and write about ; and it cannot be supposed that the mind ever fastens with a pure and animated affection on natural ob- jects and appearances, simjDly because they are pleasing to the eye and ear. That in nature always most interests us which bears the closest affinity with the feelings we most prize, and those feelings are most prized which yield us our highest satisfaction and solace. Eousseau pourtrays the symbolic character of the spring in the most beautiful man- ner : — ‘‘ To the appearance of spring the imagination adds that of the seasons which are to follow. To the tender buds which are perceived by the eye, it adds flowers, fruits, TIMES AND SEASONS. 565 shades, and sometimes the mysteries they conceal. It brings into one point of view the things that are to succeed, and sees things less as they are than as it wishes them to be. In the autumn, on the contrary, we can only contemplate the scene before us. If we wish to anticipate the spring, our course is stopped by winter, and our frozen imagination expires amid snows and fogs.’’ {Emile, lib. 1, tome 1, 448.) Spring, like the morning, is used also as the emblem of peace and gladness after misfortune, and with perfect pro- priety, because the season of returning hope. Shelley gives a charming example : — Thou Friend, whose presence on my wintry heart Fell like bright Spring upon some herbless plain. How beautiful, and calm, and free thou wert. In thy young wisdom ! Pindar also, having first called calamity and bereavement by the name of vtipaq or “ snow storm,” — vvv 6^ av fjLSra ttoikiXm ^d(pov, XQd)V (5r£ rice by the l*ublishe7's.