{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_29433/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_29433","id":"gutenberg_29433","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29433","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Nature","Philosophy, American"],"text":"Produced by Ruth Hart\n\n\n\n\nNATURE\n\nBY\n\nR. W. EMERSON\n\n\nA subtle chain of countless rings\nThe next unto the farthest brings;\nThe eye reads omens where it goes,\nAnd speaks all languages the rose;\nAnd, striving to be man, the worm\nMounts through all the spires of form.\n\n\nNEW EDITION\n\n\nBOSTON & CAMBRIDGE:\nJAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY\nM DCCC XLIX.\n\n\nEntered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1849\nBy JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY,\nin the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of\nMassachusetts.\n\n\nBOSTON:\nTHURSTON, TORRY AND COMPANY,\n31 Devonshire Street.\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n               INTRODUCTION    1\nCHAPTER I.     NATURE          8\nCHAPTER II.    COMMODITY      10\nCHAPTER III.   BEAUTY         13\nCHAPTER IV.    LANGUAGE       23\nCHAPTER V.     DISCIPLINE     34\nCHAPTER VI.    IDEALISM       45\nCHAPTER VII.   SPIRIT         59\nCHAPTER VIII.  PROSPECTS      64\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nOUR age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It\nwrites biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing\ngenerations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their\neyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the\nuniverse? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of\ninsight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and\nnot the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose\nfloods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the\npowers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we\ngrope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation\ninto masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day\nalso. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands,\nnew men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws\nand worship.\n\nUndoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable.\nWe must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that\nwhatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds,\nthe order of things can satisfy. Every man's condition is a solution in\nhieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life,\nbefore he apprehends it as truth. In like manner, nature is already, in\nits forms and tendencies, describing its own design. Let us\ninterrogate the great apparition, that shines so peacefully around us.\nLet us inquire, to what end is nature?\n\nAll science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. We have\ntheories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote\napproach to an idea of creation. We are now so far from the road to\ntruth, that religious teachers dispute and hate each other, and\nspeculative men are esteemed unsound and frivolous. But to a sound\njudgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a\ntrue theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will\nexplain all phenomena. Now many are thought not only unexplained\nbut inexplicable; as language, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, sex.\n\nPhilosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and\nthe Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all\nwhich Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature\nand art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this\nname, NATURE. In enumerating the values of nature and casting up\ntheir sum, I shall use the word in both senses;--in its common and in\nits philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one,\nthe inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur.\n_Nature_, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by\nman; space, the air, the river, the leaf. _Art_ is applied to the\nmixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a\nstatue, a picture. But his operations taken together are so\ninsignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing, that in\nan impression so grand as that of the world on the human mind, they\ndo not vary the result.\n\n\n\nNATURE.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTO go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber\nas from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though\nnobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the\nstars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate\nbetween him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere\nwas made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly\nbodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of\ncities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a\nthousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for\nmany generations the remembrance of the city of God which had\nbeen shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and\nlight the universe with their admonishing smile.\n\nThe stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present,\nthey are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred\nimpression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never\nwears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her\nsecret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature\nnever became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the\nmountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they\nhad delighted the simplicity of his childhood.\n\nWhen we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most\npoetical sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression\nmade by manifold natural objects. It is this which distinguishes the\nstick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet. The\ncharming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made\nup of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that,\nand Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the\nlandscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but\nhe whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the\nbest part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give\nno title.\n\nTo speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do\nnot see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun\nilluminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the\nheart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and\noutward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has\nretained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His\nintercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In\nthe presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite\nof real sorrows. Nature says,--he is my creature, and maugre all his\nimpertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the\nsummer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight;\nfor every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different\nstate of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight.\nNature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece.\nIn good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a\nbare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky,\nwithout having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good\nfortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink\nof fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his\nslough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the\nwoods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a\ndecorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the\nguest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the\nwoods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can\nbefall me in life,--no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,)\nwhich nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,--my head\nbathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean\negotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I\nsee all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I\nam part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds\nthen foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances,\n--master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of\nuncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find\nsomething more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the\ntranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon,\nman beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.\n\nThe greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the\nsuggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I\nam not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them.\nThe waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It\ntakes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of\na higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I\ndeemed I was thinking justly or doing right.\n\nYet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not\nreside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both. It is necessary\nto use these pleasures with great temperance. For, nature is not\nalways tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday\nbreathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is\noverspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors\nof the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own\nfire hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of contempt of the\nlandscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The\nsky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nCOMMODITY.\n\nWHOEVER considers the final cause of the world, will discern a\nmultitude of uses that result. They all admit of being thrown into one\nof the following classes; Commodity; Beauty; Language; and\nDiscipline.\n\nUnder the general name of Commodity, I rank all those advantages\nwhich our senses owe to nature. This, of course, is a benefit which is\ntemporary and mediate, not ultimate, like its service to the soul. Yet\nalthough low, it is perfect in its kind, and is the only use of nature\nwhich all men apprehend. The misery of man appears like childish\npetulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that\nhas been made for his support and delight on this green ball which\nfloats him through the heavens. What angels invented these splendid\nornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this\nocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? this zodiac\nof lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates,\nthis fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, stones, and corn serve him.\nThe field is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his\ngarden, and his bed.\n\n     \"More servants wait on man\n     Than he'll take notice of.\"--\n\nNature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the\nprocess and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each\nother's hands for the profit of man. The wind sows the seed; the sun\nevaporates the sea; the wind blows the vapor to the field; the ice, on\nthe other side of the planet, condenses rain on this; the rain feeds the\nplant; the plant feeds the animal; and thus the endless circulations of\nthe divine charity nourish man.\n\nThe useful arts are reproductions or new combinations by the wit of\nman, of the same natural benefactors. He no longer waits for\nfavoring gales, but by means of steam, he realizes the fable of\nAeolus's bag, and carries the two and thirty winds in the boiler of his\nboat. To diminish friction, he paves the road with iron bars,\nand, mounting a coach with a ship-load of men, animals, and\nmerchandise behind him, he darts through the country, from town to\ntown, like an eagle or a swallow through the air. By the aggregate of\nthese aids, how is the face of the world changed, from the era of\nNoah to that of Napoleon! The private poor man hath cities, ships,\ncanals, bridges, built for him. He goes to the post-office, and the\nhuman race run on his errands; to the book-shop, and the human\nrace read and write of all that happens, for him; to the court-house,\nand nations repair his wrongs. He sets his house upon the road, and\nthe human race go forth every morning, and shovel out the snow,\nand cut a path for him.\n\nBut there is no need of specifying particulars in this class of uses.\nThe catalogue is endless, and the examples so obvious, that I shall\nleave them to the reader's reflection, with the general remark, that\nthis mercenary benefit is one which has respect to a farther good. A\nman is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nBEAUTY.\n\nA NOBLER want of man is served by nature, namely, the love of\nBeauty.\n\nThe ancient Greeks called the world _kosmos_, beauty. Such is the\nconstitution of all things, or such the plastic power of the human eye,\nthat the primary forms, as the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal,\ngive us a delight _in and for themselves_; a pleasure arising from\noutline, color, motion, and grouping. This seems partly owing to the\neye itself. The eye is the best of artists. By the mutual action of its\nstructure and of the laws of light, perspective is produced, which\nintegrates every mass of objects, of what character soever, into a\nwell colored and shaded globe, so that where the particular objects\nare mean and unaffecting, the landscape which they compose, is\nround and symmetrical. And as the eye is the best composer, so light\nis the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light\nwill not make beautiful. And the stimulus it affords to the sense, and\na sort of infinitude which it hath, like space and time, make all\nmatter gay. Even the corpse has its own beauty. But besides this\ngeneral grace diffused over nature, almost all the individual forms\nare agreeable to the eye, as is proved by our endless imitations of\nsome of them, as the acorn, the grape, the pine-cone, the wheat-ear,\nthe egg, the wings and forms of most birds, the lion's claw, the\nserpent, the butterfly, sea-shells, flames, clouds, buds, leaves, and\nthe forms of many trees, as the palm.\n\nFor better consideration, we may distribute the aspects of Beauty in\na threefold manner.\n\n1. First, the simple perception of natural forms is a delight. The\ninfluence of the forms and actions in nature, is so needful to man,\nthat, in its lowest functions, it seems to lie on the confines of\ncommodity and beauty. To the body and mind which have been\ncramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and\nrestores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney comes out of the din\nand craft of the street, and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man\nagain. In their eternal calm, he finds himself. The health of the eye\nseems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can\nsee far enough.\n\nBut in other hours, Nature satisfies by its loveliness, and without any\nmixture of corporeal benefit. I see the spectacle of morning from the\nhill-top over against my house, from day-break to sun-rise, with\nemotions which an angel might share. The long slender bars of\ncloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as\na shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid\ntransformations: the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I\ndilate and conspire with the morning wind. How does Nature deify\nus with a few and cheap elements! Give me health and a day, and I\nwill make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria;\nthe sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of\nfaerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the\nunderstanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy\nand dreams.\n\nNot less excellent, except for our less susceptibility in the afternoon,\nwas the charm, last evening, of a January sunset. The western clouds\ndivided and subdivided themselves into pink flakes modulated with\ntints of unspeakable softness; and the air had so much life and\nsweetness, that it was a pain to come within doors. What was it that\nnature would say? Was there no meaning in the live repose of the\nvalley behind the mill, and which Homer or Shakspeare could not\nreform for me in words? The leafless trees become spires of flame in\nthe sunset, with the blue east for their back-ground, and the stars of\nthe dead calices of flowers, and every withered stem and stubble\nrimed with frost, contribute something to the mute music.\n\nThe inhabitants of cities suppose that the country landscape is\npleasant only half the year. I please myself with the graces of the\nwinter scenery, and believe that we are as much touched by it as by\nthe genial influences of summer. To the attentive eye, each moment\nof the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds,\nevery hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall\nnever be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect\ntheir glory or gloom on the plains beneath. The state of the crop in\nthe surrounding farms alters the expression of the earth from week\nto week. The succession of native plants in the pastures and\nroadsides, which makes the silent clock by which time tells the\nsummer hours, will make even the divisions of the day sensible to a\nkeen observer. The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants\npunctual to their time, follow each other, and the year has room for\nall. By water-courses, the variety is greater. In July, the blue\npontederia or pickerel-weed blooms in large beds in the shallow\nparts of our pleasant river, and swarms with yellow butterflies in\ncontinual motion. Art cannot rival this pomp of purple and gold.\nIndeed the river is a perpetual gala, and boasts each month a new\nornament.\n\nBut this beauty of Nature which is seen and felt as beauty, is the\nleast part. The shows of day, the dewy morning, the rainbow,\nmountains, orchards in blossom, stars, moonlight, shadows in still\nwater, and the like, if too eagerly hunted, become shows merely, and\nmock us with their unreality. Go out of the house to see the moon,\nand 't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon\nyour necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow\nafternoons of October, who ever could clutch it? Go forth to find it,\nand it is gone: 't is only a mirage as you look from the windows of\ndiligence.\n\n2. The presence of a higher, namely, of the spiritual element is\nessential to its perfection. The high and divine beauty which can be\nloved without effeminacy, is that which is found in combination\nwith the human will. Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every\nnatural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, and causes\nthe place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions\nthat the universe is the property of every individual in it. Every\nrational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if\nhe will. He may divest himself of it; he may creep into a corner, and\nabdicate his kingdom, as most men do, but he is entitled to the world\nby his constitution. In proportion to the energy of his thought and\nwill, he takes up the world into himself. \"All those things for which\nmen plough, build, or sail, obey virtue;\" said Sallust. \"The winds\nand waves,\" said Gibbon, \"are always on the side of the ablest\nnavigators.\" So are the sun and moon and all the stars of heaven.\nWhen a noble act is done,--perchance in a scene of great natural\nbeauty; when Leonidas and his three hundred martyrs consume one\nday in dying, and the sun and moon come each and look at them\nonce in the steep defile of Thermopylae; when Arnold Winkelried,\nin the high Alps, under the shadow of the avalanche, gathers in his\nside a sheaf of Austrian spears to break the line for his comrades; are\nnot these heroes entitled to add the beauty of the scene to the beauty\nof the deed? When the bark of Columbus nears the shore of\nAmerica;--before it, the beach lined with savages, fleeing out of all\ntheir huts of cane; the sea behind; and the purple mountains of the\nIndian Archipelago around, can we separate the man from the living\npicture? Does not the New World clothe his form with her\npalm-groves and savannahs as fit drapery? Ever does natural beauty steal\nin like air, and envelope great actions. When Sir Harry Vane was\ndragged up the Tower-hill, sitting on a sled, to suffer death, as the\nchampion of the English laws, one of the multitude cried out to him,\n\"You never sate on so glorious a seat.\" Charles II., to intimidate the\ncitizens of London, caused the patriot Lord Russel to be drawn in an\nopen coach, through the principal streets of the city, on his way to\nthe scaffold. \"But,\" his biographer says, \"the multitude imagined\nthey saw liberty and virtue sitting by his side.\" In private places,\namong sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems at once to\ndraw to itself the sky as its temple, the sun as its candle. Nature\nstretcheth out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of\nequal greatness. Willingly does she follow his steps with the rose\nand the violet, and bend her lines of grandeur and grace to the\ndecoration of her darling child. Only let his thoughts be of equal\nscope, and the frame will suit the picture. A virtuous man is in\nunison with her works, and makes the central figure of the visible\nsphere. Homer, Pindar, Socrates, Phocion, associate themselves fitly\nin our memory with the geography and climate of Greece. The\nvisible heavens and earth sympathize with Jesus. And in common\nlife, whosoever has seen a person of powerful character and happy\ngenius, will have remarked how easily he took all things along with\nhim,--the persons, the opinions, and the day, and nature became\nancillary to a man.\n\n3. There is still another aspect under which the beauty of the world\nmay be viewed, namely, as it becomes an object of the intellect.\nBeside the relation of things to virtue, they have a relation to thought.\nThe intellect searches out the absolute order of things as they stand\nin the mind of God, and without the colors of affection. The\nintellectual and the active powers seem to succeed each other, and\nthe exclusive activity of the one, generates the exclusive activity of\nthe other. There is something unfriendly in each to the other, but\nthey are like the alternate periods of feeding and working in animals;\neach prepares and will be followed by the other. Therefore does\nbeauty, which, in relation to actions, as we have seen, comes\nunsought, and comes because it is unsought, remain for the\napprehension and pursuit of the intellect; and then again, in its turn,\nof the active power. Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally\nreproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and\nnot for barren contemplation, but for new creation.\n\nAll men are in some degree impressed by the face of the world;\nsome men even to delight. This love of beauty is Taste. Others have\nthe same love in such excess, that, not content with admiring, they\nseek to embody it in new forms. The creation of beauty is Art.\n\nThe production of a work of art throws a light upon the mystery of\nhumanity. A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world. It is\nthe result or expression of nature, in miniature. For, although the\nworks of nature are innumerable and all different, the result or the\nexpression of them all is similar and single. Nature is a sea of forms\nradically alike and even unique. A leaf, a sun-beam, a landscape, the\nocean, make an analogous impression on the mind. What is common\nto them all,--that perfectness and harmony, is beauty. The standard\nof beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms,--the totality of nature;\nwhich the Italians expressed by defining beauty \"il piu nell' uno.\"\nNothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the\nwhole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this\nuniversal grace. The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the\narchitect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one\npoint, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty\nwhich stimulates him to produce. Thus is Art, a nature passed\nthrough the alembic of man. Thus in art, does nature work through\nthe will of a man filled with the beauty of her first works.\n\nThe world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty. This\nelement I call an ultimate end. No reason can be asked or given why\nthe soul seeks beauty. Beauty, in its largest and profoundest sense, is\none expression for the universe. God is the all-fair. Truth, and\ngoodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All. But\nbeauty in nature is not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eternal\nbeauty, and is not alone a solid and satisfactory good. It must stand\nas a part, and not as yet the last or highest expression of the final\ncause of Nature.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nLANGUAGE.\n\nLANGUAGE is a third use which Nature subserves to man. Nature\nis the vehicle, and threefold degree.\n\n1. Words are signs of natural facts.\n\n2. Particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts.\n\n3. Nature is the symbol of spirit.\n\n1. Words are signs of natural facts. The use of natural history is to\ngive us aid in supernatural history: the use of the outer creation, to\ngive us language for the beings and changes of the inward creation.\nEvery word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if\ntraced to its root, is found to be borrowed from some material\nappearance. _Right_ means _straight_; _wrong_ means _twisted_.\n_Spirit_ primarily means _wind_; _transgression_, the crossing of a\n_line_; _supercilious_, the _raising of the eyebrow_. We say the\n_heart_ to express emotion, the _head_ to denote thought; and\n_thought_ and _emotion_ are words borrowed from sensible things,\nand now appropriated to spiritual nature. Most of the process by\nwhich this transformation is made, is hidden from us in the remote\ntime when language was framed; but the same tendency may be\ndaily observed in children. Children and savages use only nouns or\nnames of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to\nanalogous mental acts.\n\n2. But this origin of all words that convey a spiritual import,--so\nconspicuous a fact in the history of language,--is our least debt to\nnature. It is not words only that are emblematic; it is things which\nare emblematic. Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.\nEvery appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind,\nand that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that\nnatural appearance as its picture. An enraged man is a lion, a\ncunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch.\nA lamb is innocence; a snake is subtle spite; flowers express to us\nthe delicate affections. Light and darkness are our familiar\nexpression for knowledge and ignorance; and heat for love. Visible\ndistance behind and before us, is respectively our image of memory\nand hope.\n\nWho looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of\nthe flux of all things? Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles\nthat propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.\nMan is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual\nlife, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love,\nFreedom, arise and shine. This universal soul, he calls Reason: it is\nnot mine, or thine, or his, but we are its; we are its property and men.\nAnd the blue sky in which the private earth is buried, the sky with its\neternal calm, and full of everlasting orbs, is the type of Reason. That\nwhich, intellectually considered, we call Reason, considered in\nrelation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the Creator. Spirit hath life\nin itself. And man in all ages and countries, embodies it in his\nlanguage, as the FATHER.\n\nIt is easily seen that there is nothing lucky or capricious in these\nanalogies, but that they are constant, and pervade nature. These are\nnot the dreams of a few poets, here and there, but man is an\nanalogist, and studies relations in all objects. He is placed in the\ncentre of beings, and a ray of relation passes from every other being\nto him. And neither can man be understood without these objects,\nnor these objects without man. All the facts in natural history taken\nby themselves, have no value, but are barren, like a single sex. But\nmarry it to human history, and it is full of life. Whole Floras, all\nLinnaeus' and Buffon's volumes, are dry catalogues of facts; but the\nmost trivial of these facts, the habit of a plant, the organs, or work,\nor noise of an insect, applied to the illustration of a fact in\nintellectual philosophy, or, in any way associated to human nature,\naffects us in the most lively and agreeable manner. The seed of a\nplant,--to what affecting analogies in the nature of man, is that little\nfruit made use of, in all discourse, up to the voice of Paul, who calls\nthe human corpse a seed,--\"It is sown a natural body; it is raised a\nspiritual body.\" The motion of the earth round its axis, and round the\nsun, makes the day, and the year. These are certain amounts of brute\nlight and heat. But is there no intent of an analogy between man's\nlife and the seasons? And do the seasons gain no grandeur or pathos\nfrom that analogy? The instincts of the ant are very unimportant,\nconsidered as the ant's; but the moment a ray of relation is seen to\nextend from it to man, and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor, a\nlittle body with a mighty heart, then all its habits, even that said to\nbe recently observed, that it never sleeps, become sublime.\n\nBecause of this radical correspondence between visible things and\nhuman thoughts, savages, who have only what is necessary,\nconverse in figures. As we go back in history, language becomes\nmore picturesque, until its infancy, when it is all poetry; or all\nspiritual facts are represented by natural symbols. The same symbols\nare found to make the original elements of all languages. It has\nmoreover been observed, that the idioms of all languages approach\neach other in passages of the greatest eloquence and power. And as\nthis is the first language, so is it the last. This immediate dependence\nof language upon nature, this conversion of an outward phenomenon\ninto a type of somewhat in human life, never loses its power to\naffect us. It is this which gives that piquancy to the conversation of a\nstrong-natured farmer or back-woodsman, which all men relish.\n\nA man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so\nto utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon\nhis love of truth, and his desire to communicate it without loss. The\ncorruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. When\nsimplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by\nthe prevalence of secondary desires, the desire of riches, of pleasure,\nof power, and of praise,--and duplicity and falsehood take place of\nsimplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the\nwill, is in a degree lost; new imagery ceases to be created, and old\nwords are perverted to stand for things which are not; a paper\ncurrency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due\ntime, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the\nunderstanding or the affections. Hundreds of writers may be found\nin every long-civilized nation, who for a short time believe, and\nmake others believe, that they see and utter truths, who do not of\nthemselves clothe one thought in its natural garment, but who feed\nunconsciously on the language created by the primary writers of the\ncountry, those, namely, who hold primarily on nature.\n\nBut wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to\nvisible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding\ncertificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and\nGod. The moment our discourse rises above the ground line of\nfamiliar facts, and is inflamed with passion or exalted by thought, it\nclothes itself in images. A man conversing in earnest, if he watch his\nintellectual processes, will find that a material image, more or less\nluminous, arises in his mind, cotemporaneous with every thought,\nwhich furnishes the vestment of the thought. Hence, good writing\nand brilliant discourse are perpetual allegories. This imagery is\nspontaneous. It is the blending of experience with the present action\nof the mind. It is proper creation. It is the working of the Original\nCause through the instruments he has already made.\n\nThese facts may suggest the advantage which the country-life\npossesses for a powerful mind, over the artificial and curtailed life\nof cities. We know more from nature than we can at will\ncommunicate. Its light flows into the mind evermore, and we forget\nits presence. The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses\nhave been nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after\nyear, without design and without heed,--shall not lose their lesson\naltogether, in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long hereafter,\namidst agitation and terror in national councils,--in the hour of\nrevolution,--these solemn images shall reappear in their morning\nlustre, as fit symbols and words of the thoughts which the passing\nevents shall awaken. At the call of a noble sentiment, again the\nwoods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the\ncattle low upon the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his\ninfancy. And with these forms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of\npower are put into his hands.\n\n3. We are thus assisted by natural objects in the expression of\nparticular meanings. But how great a language to convey such\npepper-corn informations! Did it need such noble races of creatures,\nthis profusion of forms, this host of orbs in heaven, to furnish man\nwith the dictionary and grammar of his municipal speech? Whilst\nwe use this grand cipher to expedite the affairs of our pot and kettle,\nwe feel that we have not yet put it to its use, neither are able. We are\nlike travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs.\nWhilst we see that it always stands ready to clothe what we would\nsay, we cannot avoid the question, whether the characters are not\nsignificant of themselves. Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no\nsignificance but what we consciously give them, when we employ\nthem as emblems of our thoughts? The world is emblematic. Parts of\nspeech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of\nthe human mind. The laws of moral nature answer to those of matter\nas face to face in a glass. \"The visible world and the relation of its\nparts, is the dial plate of the invisible.\" The axioms of physics\ntranslate the laws of ethics. Thus, \"the whole is greater than its part;\"\n\"reaction is equal to action;\" \"the smallest weight may be made to\nlift the greatest, the difference of weight being compensated by\ntime;\" and many the like propositions, which have an ethical as well\nas physical sense. These propositions have a much more extensive\nand universal sense when applied to human life, than when confined\nto technical use.\n\nIn like manner, the memorable words of history, and the proverbs of\nnations, consist usually of a natural fact, selected as a picture or\nparable of a moral truth. Thus; A rolling stone gathers no moss; A\nbird in the hand is worth two in the bush; A cripple in the right way,\nwill beat a racer in the wrong; Make hay while the sun shines; 'T is\nhard to carry a full cup even; Vinegar is the son of wine; The last\nounce broke the camel's back; Long-lived trees make roots first;\n--and the like. In their primary sense these are trivial facts, but we\nrepeat them for the value of their analogical import. What is true of\nproverbs, is true of all fables, parables, and allegories.\n\nThis relation between the mind and matter is not fancied by some\npoet, but stands in the will of God, and so is free to be known by all\nmen. It appears to men, or it does not appear. When in fortunate\nhours we ponder this miracle, the wise man doubts, if, at all other\ntimes, he is not blind and deaf;\n\n          --\"Can these things be,\n     And overcome us like a summer's cloud,\n     Without our special wonder?\"\n\nfor the universe becomes transparent, and the light of higher laws\nthan its own, shines through it. It is the standing problem which has\nexercised the wonder and the study of every fine genius since the\nworld began; from the era of the Egyptians and the Brahmins, to that\nof Pythagoras, of Plato, of Bacon, of Leibnitz, of Swedenborg.\nThere sits the Sphinx at the road-side, and from age to age, as each\nprophet comes by, he tries his fortune at reading her riddle. There\nseems to be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in material forms;\nand day and night, river and storm, beast and bird, acid and alkali,\npreexist in necessary Ideas in the mind of God, and are what they\nare by virtue of preceding affections, in the world of spirit. A Fact is\nthe end or last issue of spirit. The visible creation is the terminus or\nthe circumference of the invisible world. \"Material objects,\" said a\nFrench philosopher, \"are necessarily kinds of _scoriae_ of the\nsubstantial thoughts of the Creator, which must always preserve an\nexact relation to their first origin; in other words, visible nature must\nhave a spiritual and moral side.\"\n\nThis doctrine is abstruse, and though the images of \"garment,\"\n\"scoriae,\" \"mirror,\" &c., may stimulate the fancy, we must summon\nthe aid of subtler and more vital expositors to make it plain. \"Every\nscripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit which gave it forth,\"\n--is the fundamental law of criticism. A life in harmony with nature,\nthe love of truth and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her\ntext. By degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the\npermanent objects of nature, so that the world shall be to us an open\nbook, and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause.\n\nA new interest surprises us, whilst, under the view now suggested,\nwe contemplate the fearful extent and multitude of objects; since\n\"every object rightly seen, unlocks a new faculty of the soul.\" That\nwhich was unconscious truth, becomes, when interpreted and\ndefined in an object, a part of the domain of knowledge,--a new\nweapon in the magazine of power.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nDISCIPLINE.\n\nIN view of the significance of nature, we arrive at once at a new fact,\nthat nature is a discipline. This use of the world includes the\npreceding uses, as parts of itself.\n\nSpace, time, society, labor, climate, food, locomotion, the animals,\nthe mechanical forces, give us sincerest lessons, day by day, whose\nmeaning is unlimited. They educate both the Understanding and the\nReason. Every property of matter is a school for the understanding,\n--its solidity or resistance, its inertia, its extension, its figure, its\ndivisibility. The understanding adds, divides, combines, measures,\nand finds nutriment and room for its activity in this worthy scene.\nMeantime, Reason transfers all these lessons into its own world of\nthought, by perceiving the analogy that marries Matter and Mind.\n\n1. Nature is a discipline of the understanding in intellectual truths.\nOur dealing with sensible objects is a constant exercise in the\nnecessary lessons of difference, of likeness, of order, of being and\nseeming, of progressive arrangement; of ascent from particular to\ngeneral; of combination to one end of manifold forces. Proportioned\nto the importance of the organ to be formed, is the extreme care with\nwhich its tuition is provided,--a care pretermitted in no single case.\nWhat tedious training, day after day, year after year, never ending,\nto form the common sense; what continual reproduction of\nannoyances, inconveniences, dilemmas; what rejoicing over us of\nlittle men; what disputing of prices, what reckonings of interest,\n--and all to form the Hand of the mind;--to instruct us that \"good\nthoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!\"\n\nThe same good office is performed by Property and its filial systems\nof debt and credit. Debt, grinding debt, whose iron face the widow,\nthe orphan, and the sons of genius fear and hate;--debt, which\nconsumes so much time, which so cripples and disheartens a great\nspirit with cares that seem so base, is a preceptor whose lessons\ncannot be forgone, and is needed most by those who suffer from it\nmost. Moreover, property, which has been well compared to snow,\n--\"if it fall level to-day, it will be blown into drifts to-morrow,\"--is\nthe surface action of internal machinery, like the index on the face of a\nclock. Whilst now it is the gymnastics of the understanding, it is\nhiving in the foresight of the spirit, experience in profounder laws.\n\nThe whole character and fortune of the individual are affected by the\nleast inequalities in the culture of the understanding; for example, in\nthe perception of differences. Therefore is Space, and therefore\nTime, that man may know that things are not huddled and lumped,\nbut sundered and individual. A bell and a plough have each their use,\nand neither can do the office of the other. Water is good to drink,\ncoal to burn, wool to wear; but wool cannot be drunk, nor water\nspun, nor coal eaten. The wise man shows his wisdom in separation,\nin gradation, and his scale of creatures and of merits is as wide as\nnature. The foolish have no range in their scale, but suppose every\nman is as every other man. What is not good they call the worst, and\nwhat is not hateful, they call the best.\n\nIn like manner, what good heed, nature forms in us! She pardons no\nmistakes. Her yea is yea, and her nay, nay.\n\nThe first steps in Agriculture, Astronomy, Zooelogy, (those first steps\nwhich the farmer, the hunter, and the sailor take,) teach that nature's\ndice are always loaded; that in her heaps and rubbish are concealed\nsure and useful results.\n\nHow calmly and genially the mind apprehends one after another the\nlaws of physics! What noble emotions dilate the mortal as he enters\ninto the counsels of the creation, and feels by knowledge the\nprivilege to BE! His insight refines him. The beauty of nature shines\nin his own breast. Man is greater that he can see this, and the\nuniverse less, because Time and Space relations vanish as laws are\nknown.\n\nHere again we are impressed and even daunted by the immense\nUniverse to be explored. \"What we know, is a point to what we do\nnot know.\" Open any recent journal of science, and weigh the\nproblems suggested concerning Light, Heat, Electricity, Magnetism,\nPhysiology, Geology, and judge whether the interest of natural\nscience is likely to be soon exhausted.\n\nPassing by many particulars of the discipline of nature, we must not\nomit to specify two.\n\nThe exercise of the Will or the lesson of power is taught in every\nevent. From the child's successive possession of his several senses\nup to the hour when he saith, \"Thy will be done!\" he is learning the\nsecret, that he can reduce under his will, not only particular events,\nbut great classes, nay the whole series of events, and so conform all\nfacts to his character. Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to\nserve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on\nwhich the Saviour rode. It offers all its kingdoms to man as the raw\nmaterial which he may mould into what is useful. Man is never\nweary of working it up. He forges the subtile and delicate air into\nwise and melodious words, and gives them wing as angels of\npersuasion and command. One after another, his victorious thought\ncomes up with and reduces all things, until the world becomes, at\nlast, only a realized will,--the double of the man.\n\n2. Sensible objects conform to the premonitions of Reason and\nreflect the conscience. All things are moral; and in their boundless\nchanges have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore is\nnature glorious with form, color, and motion, that every globe in the\nremotest heaven; every chemical change from the rudest crystal up\nto the laws of life; every change of vegetation from the first\nprinciple of growth in the eye of a leaf, to the tropical forest and\nantediluvian coal-mine; every animal function from the sponge up to\nHercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong,\nand echo the Ten Commandments. Therefore is nature ever the ally\nof Religion: lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment.\nProphet and priest, David, Isaiah, Jesus, have drawn deeply from\nthis source. This ethical character so penetrates the bone and marrow\nof nature, as to seem the end for which it was made. Whatever\nprivate purpose is answered by any member or part, this is its public\nand universal function, and is never omitted. Nothing in nature is\nexhausted in its first use. When a thing has served an end to the\nuttermost, it is wholly new for an ulterior service. In God, every end\nis converted into a new means. Thus the use of commodity, regarded\nby itself, is mean and squalid. But it is to the mind an education in\nthe doctrine of Use, namely, that a thing is good only so far as it\nserves; that a conspiring of parts and efforts to the production of an\nend, is essential to any being. The first and gross manifestation of\nthis truth, is our inevitable and hated training in values and wants, in\ncorn and meat.\n\nIt has already been illustrated, that every natural process is a version\nof a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the centre of nature and\nradiates to the circumference. It is the pith and marrow of every\nsubstance, every relation, and every process. All things with which\nwe deal, preach to us. What is a farm but a mute gospel? The chaff\nand the wheat, weeds and plants, blight, rain, insects, sun,--it is a\nsacred emblem from the first furrow of spring to the last stack which\nthe snow of winter overtakes in the fields. But the sailor, the\nshepherd, the miner, the merchant, in their several resorts, have each\nan experience precisely parallel, and leading to the same conclusion:\nbecause all organizations are radically alike. Nor can it be doubted\nthat this moral sentiment which thus scents the air, grows in the\ngrain, and impregnates the waters of the world, is caught by man\nand sinks into his soul. The moral influence of nature upon every\nindividual is that amount of truth which it illustrates to him. Who\ncan estimate this? Who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten\nrock has taught the fisherman? how much tranquillity has been\nreflected to man from the azure sky, over whose unspotted deeps the\nwinds forevermore drive flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no\nwrinkle or stain? how much industry and providence and affection\nwe have caught from the pantomime of brutes? What a searching\npreacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of Health!\n\nHerein is especially apprehended the unity of Nature,--the unity in\nvariety,--which meets us everywhere. All the endless variety of\nthings make an identical impression. Xenophanes complained in his\nold age, that, look where he would, all things hastened back to Unity.\nHe was weary of seeing the same entity in the tedious variety of\nforms. The fable of Proteus has a cordial truth. A leaf, a drop, a\ncrystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the\nperfection of the whole. Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully\nrenders the likeness of the world.\n\nNot only resemblances exist in things whose analogy is obvious, as\nwhen we detect the type of the human hand in the flipper of the\nfossil saurus, but also in objects wherein there is great superficial\nunlikeness. Thus architecture is called \"frozen music,\" by De Stael\nand Goethe. Vitruvius thought an architect should be a musician. \"A\nGothic church,\" said Coleridge, \"is a petrified religion.\" Michael\nAngelo maintained, that, to an architect, a knowledge of anatomy is\nessential. In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination\nnot only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but\ncolors also; as the green grass. The law of harmonic sounds\nreappears in the harmonic colors. The granite is differenced in its\nlaws only by the more or less of heat, from the river that wears it\naway. The river, as it flows, resembles the air that flows over it; the\nair resembles the light which traverses it with more subtile currents;\nthe light resembles the heat which rides with it through Space. Each\ncreature is only a modification of the other; the likeness in them is\nmore than the difference, and their radical law is one and the same.\nA rule of one art, or a law of one organization, holds true throughout\nnature. So intimate is this Unity, that, it is easily seen, it lies under\nthe undermost garment of nature, and betrays its source in Universal\nSpirit. For, it pervades Thought also. Every universal truth which we\nexpress in words, implies or supposes every other truth. _Omne\nverum vero consonat_. It is like a great circle on a sphere,\ncomprising all possible circles; which, however, may be drawn, and\ncomprise it, in like manner. Every such truth is the absolute Ens\nseen from one side. But it has innumerable sides.\n\nThe central Unity is still more conspicuous in actions. Words are\nfinite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions\nof what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish it. An action is\nthe perfection and publication of thought. A right action seems to fill\nthe eye, and to be related to all nature. \"The wise man, in doing one\nthing, does all; or, in the one thing he does rightly, he sees the\nlikeness of all which is done rightly.\"\n\nWords and actions are not the attributes of brute nature. They\nintroduce us to the human form, of which all other organizations\nappear to be degradations. When this appears among so many that\nsurround it, the spirit prefers it to all others. It says, 'From such as\nthis, have I drawn joy and knowledge; in such as this, have I found\nand beheld myself; I will speak to it; it can speak again; it can yield\nme thought already formed and alive.' In fact, the eye,--the mind,--is\nalways accompanied by these forms, male and female; and these are\nincomparably the richest informations of the power and order that\nlie at the heart of things. Unfortunately, every one of them bears the\nmarks as of some injury; is marred and superficially defective.\nNevertheless, far different from the deaf and dumb nature around\nthem, these all rest like fountain-pipes on the unfathomed sea of\nthought and virtue whereto they alone, of all organizations, are the\nentrances.\n\nIt were a pleasant inquiry to follow into detail their ministry to our\neducation, but where would it stop? We are associated in adolescent\nand adult life with some friends, who, like skies and waters, are\ncoextensive with our idea; who, answering each to a certain\naffection of the soul, satisfy our desire on that side; whom we lack\npower to put at such focal distance from us, that we can mend or\neven analyze them. We cannot choose but love them. When much\nintercourse with a friend has supplied us with a standard of\nexcellence, and has increased our respect for the resources of God\nwho thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal; when he has,\nmoreover, become an object of thought, and, whilst his character\nretains all its unconscious effect, is converted in the mind into solid\nand sweet wisdom,--it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he\nis commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nIDEALISM.\n\nTHUS is the unspeakable but intelligible and practicable meaning of\nthe world conveyed to man, the immortal pupil, in every object of\nsense. To this one end of Discipline, all parts of nature conspire.\n\nA noble doubt perpetually suggests itself, whether this end be not\nthe Final Cause of the Universe; and whether nature outwardly\nexists. It is a sufficient account of that Appearance we call the\nWorld, that God will teach a human mind, and so makes it the\nreceiver of a certain number of congruent sensations, which we call\nsun and moon, man and woman, house and trade. In my utter\nimpotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to\nknow whether the impressions they make on me correspond with\noutlying objects, what difference does it make, whether Orion is up\nthere in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of\nthe soul? The relations of parts and the end of the whole remaining\nthe same, what is the difference, whether land and sea interact, and\nworlds revolve and intermingle without number or end,--deep\nyawning under deep, and galaxy balancing galaxy, throughout\nabsolute space,--or, whether, without relations of time and space, the\nsame appearances are inscribed in the constant faith of man?\nWhether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only in\nthe apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to\nme. Be it what it may, it is ideal to me, so long as I cannot try the\naccuracy of my senses.\n\nThe frivolous make themselves merry with the Ideal theory, if its\nconsequences were burlesque; as if it affected the stability of nature.\nIt surely does not. God never jests with us, and will not compromise\nthe end of nature, by permitting any inconsequence in its procession.\nAny distrust of the permanence of laws, would paralyze the faculties\nof man. Their permanence is sacredly respected, and his faith therein\nis perfect. The wheels and springs of man are all set to the\nhypothesis of the permanence of nature. We are not built like a ship\nto be tossed, but like a house to stand. It is a natural consequence of\nthis structure, that, so long as the active powers predominate over\nthe reflective, we resist with indignation any hint that nature is more\nshort-lived or mutable than spirit. The broker, the wheelwright, the\ncarpenter, the toll-man, are much displeased at the intimation.\n\nBut whilst we acquiesce entirely in the permanence of natural laws,\nthe question of the absolute existence of nature still remains open. It\nis the uniform effect of culture on the human mind, not to shake our\nfaith in the stability of particular phenomena, as of heat, water, azote;\nbut to lead us to regard nature as a phenomenon, not a substance; to\nattribute necessary existence to spirit; to esteem nature as an\naccident and an effect.\n\nTo the senses and the unrenewed understanding, belongs a sort of\ninstinctive belief in the absolute existence of nature. In their view,\nman and nature are indissolubly joined. Things are ultimates, and\nthey never look beyond their sphere. The presence of Reason mars\nthis faith. The first effort of thought tends to relax this despotism of\nthe senses, which binds us to nature as if we were a part of it, and\nshows us nature aloof, and, as it were, afloat. Until this higher\nagency intervened, the animal eye sees, with wonderful accuracy,\nsharp outlines and colored surfaces. When the eye of Reason opens,\nto outline and surface are at once added, grace and expression.\nThese proceed from imagination and affection, and abate somewhat\nof the angular distinctness of objects. If the Reason be stimulated to\nmore earnest vision, outlines and surfaces become transparent, and\nare no longer seen; causes and spirits are seen through them. The\nbest moments of life are these delicious awakenings of the higher\npowers, and the reverential withdrawing of nature before its God.\n\nLet us proceed to indicate the effects of culture. 1. Our first\ninstitution in the Ideal philosophy is a hint from nature herself.\n\nNature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us. Certain\nmechanical changes, a small alteration in our local position apprizes\nus of a dualism. We are strangely affected by seeing the shore from\na moving ship, from a balloon, or through the tints of an unusual sky.\nThe least change in our point of view, gives the whole world a\npictorial air. A man who seldom rides, needs only to get into a coach\nand traverse his own town, to turn the street into a puppet-show. The\nmen, the women,--talking, running, bartering, fighting,--the earnest\nmechanic, the lounger, the beggar, the boys, the dogs, are unrealized\nat once, or, at least, wholly detached from all relation to the observer,\nand seen as apparent, not substantial beings. What new thoughts are\nsuggested by seeing a face of country quite familiar, in the rapid\nmovement of the rail-road car! Nay, the most wonted objects, (make\na very slight change in the point of vision,) please us most. In a\ncamera obscura, the butcher's cart, and the figure of one of our own\nfamily amuse us. So a portrait of a well-known face gratifies us.\nTurn the eyes upside down, by looking at the landscape through\nyour legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it\nany time these twenty years!\n\nIn these cases, by mechanical means, is suggested the difference\nbetween the observer and the spectacle,--between man and nature.\nHence arises a pleasure mixed with awe; I may say, a low degree of\nthe sublime is felt from the fact, probably, that man is hereby\napprized, that, whilst the world is a spectacle, something in himself\nis stable.\n\n2. In a higher manner, the poet communicates the same pleasure. By\na few strokes he delineates, as on air, the sun, the mountain, the\ncamp, the city, the hero, the maiden, not different from what we\nknow them, but only lifted from the ground and afloat before the eye.\nHe unfixes the land and the sea, makes them revolve around the axis\nof his primary thought, and disposes them anew. Possessed himself\nby a heroic passion, he uses matter as symbols of it. The sensual\nman conforms thoughts to things; the poet conforms things to his\nthoughts. The one esteems nature as rooted and fast; the other, as\nfluid, and impresses his being thereon. To him, the refractory world\nis ductile and flexible; he invests dust and stones with humanity, and\nmakes them the words of the Reason. The Imagination may be\ndefined to be, the use which the Reason makes of the material world.\nShakspeare possesses the power of subordinating nature for the\npurposes of expression, beyond all poets. His imperial muse tosses\nthe creation like a bauble from hand to hand, and uses it to embody\nany caprice of thought that is upper-most in his mind. The remotest\nspaces of nature are visited, and the farthest sundered things are\nbrought together, by a subtle spiritual connection. We are made\naware that magnitude of material things is relative, and all objects\nshrink and expand to serve the passion of the poet. Thus, in his\nsonnets, the lays of birds, the scents and dyes of flowers, he finds to\nbe the _shadow_ of his beloved; time, which keeps her from him, is\nhis _chest_; the suspicion she has awakened, is her _ornament_;\n\n     The ornament of beauty is Suspect,\n     A crow which flies in heaven's sweetest air.\n\nHis passion is not the fruit of chance; it swells, as he speaks, to a\ncity, or a state.\n\n     No, it was builded far from accident;\n     It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls\n     Under the brow of thralling discontent;\n     It fears not policy, that heretic,\n     That works on leases of short numbered hours,\n     But all alone stands hugely politic.\n\nIn the strength of his constancy, the Pyramids seem to him recent\nand transitory. The freshness of youth and love dazzles him with its\nresemblance to morning.\n\n          Take those lips away\n     Which so sweetly were forsworn;\n     And those eyes,--the break of day,\n     Lights that do mislead the morn.\n\nThe wild beauty of this hyperbole, I may say, in passing, it would\nnot be easy to match in literature.\n\nThis transfiguration which all material objects undergo through the\npassion of the poet,--this power which he exerts to dwarf the great,\nto magnify the small,--might be illustrated by a thousand examples\nfrom his Plays. I have before me the Tempest, and will cite only\nthese few lines.\n\n     ARIEL. The strong based promontory\n     Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up\n     The pine and cedar.\n\nProspero calls for music to soothe the frantic Alonzo, and his\ncompanions;\n\n     A solemn air, and the best comforter\n     To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains\n     Now useless, boiled within thy skull.\n\nAgain;\n\n          The charm dissolves apace,\n     And, as the morning steals upon the night,\n     Melting the darkness, so their rising senses\n     Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle\n     Their clearer reason.\n          Their understanding\n     Begins to swell: and the approaching tide\n     Will shortly fill the reasonable shores\n     That now lie foul and muddy.\n\nThe perception of real affinities between events, (that is to say, of\n_ideal_ affinities, for those only are real,) enables the poet thus to\nmake free with the most imposing forms and phenomena of the\nworld, and to assert the predominance of the soul.\n\n3. Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he\ndiffers from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes\nBeauty as his main end; the other Truth. But the philosopher, not\nless than the poet, postpones the apparent order and relations of\nthings to the empire of thought. \"The problem of philosophy,\"\naccording to Plato, \"is, for all that exists conditionally, to find a\nground unconditioned and absolute.\" It proceeds on the faith that a\nlaw determines all phenomena, which being known, the phenomena\ncan be predicted. That law, when in the mind, is an idea. Its beauty\nis infinite. The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a\nbeauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of\nboth. Is not the charm of one of Plato's or Aristotle's definitions,\nstrictly like that of the Antigone of Sophocles? It is, in both cases,\nthat a spiritual life has been imparted to nature; that the solid\nseeming block of matter has been pervaded and dissolved by a\nthought; that this feeble human being has penetrated the vast masses\nof nature with an informing soul, and recognised itself in their\nharmony, that is, seized their law. In physics, when this is attained,\nthe memory disburthens itself of its cumbrous catalogues of\nparticulars, and carries centuries of observation in a single formula.\n\nThus even in physics, the material is degraded before the spiritual.\nThe astronomer, the geometer, rely on their irrefragable analysis,\nand disdain the results of observation. The sublime remark of Euler\non his law of arches, \"This will be found contrary to all experience,\nyet is true;\" had already transferred nature into the mind, and left\nmatter like an outcast corpse.\n\n4. Intellectual science has been observed to beget invariably a doubt\nof the existence of matter. Turgot said, \"He that has never doubted\nthe existence of matter, may be assured he has no aptitude for\nmetaphysical inquiries.\" It fastens the attention upon immortal\nnecessary uncreated natures, that is, upon Ideas; and in their\npresence, we feel that the outward circumstance is a dream and a\nshade. Whilst we wait in this Olympus of gods, we think of nature as\nan appendix to the soul. We ascend into their region, and know that\nthese are the thoughts of the Supreme Being. \"These are they who\nwere set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth\nwas. When he prepared the heavens, they were there; when he\nestablished the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of\nthe deep. Then they were by him, as one brought up with him. Of\nthem took he counsel.\"\n\nTheir influence is proportionate. As objects of science, they are\naccessible to few men. Yet all men are capable of being raised by\npiety or by passion, into their region. And no man touches these\ndivine natures, without becoming, in some degree, himself divine.\nLike a new soul, they renew the body. We become physically\nnimble and lightsome; we tread on air; life is no longer irksome, and\nwe think it will never be so. No man fears age or misfortune or death,\nin their serene company, for he is transported out of the district of\nchange. Whilst we behold unveiled the nature of Justice and Truth,\nwe learn the difference between the absolute and the conditional or\nrelative. We apprehend the absolute. As it were, for the first time,\n_we exist_. We become immortal, for we learn that time and space\nare relations of matter; that, with a perception of truth, or a virtuous\nwill, they have no affinity.\n\n5. Finally, religion and ethics, which may be fitly called,--the\npractice of ideas, or the introduction of ideas into life,--have an\nanalogous effect with all lower culture, in degrading nature and\nsuggesting its dependence on spirit. Ethics and religion differ herein;\nthat the one is the system of human duties commencing from man;\nthe other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God;\nEthics does not. They are one to our present design. They both put\nnature under foot. The first and last lesson of religion is, \"The things\nthat are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal.\" It\nputs an affront upon nature. It does that for the unschooled, which\nphilosophy does for Berkeley and Viasa. The uniform language that\nmay be heard in the churches of the most ignorant sects, is,\n--\"Contemn the unsubstantial shows of the world; they are vanities,\ndreams, shadows, unrealities; seek the realities of religion.\" The\ndevotee flouts nature. Some theosophists have arrived at a certain\nhostility and indignation towards matter, as the Manichean and\nPlotinus. They distrusted in themselves any looking back to these\nflesh-pots of Egypt. Plotinus was ashamed of his body. In short, they\nmight all say of matter, what Michael Angelo said of external beauty,\n\"it is the frail and weary weed, in which God dresses the soul, which\nhe has called into time.\"\n\nIt appears that motion, poetry, physical and intellectual science, and\nreligion, all tend to affect our convictions of the reality of the\nexternal world. But I own there is something ungrateful in\nexpanding too curiously the particulars of the general proposition,\nthat all culture tends to imbue us with idealism. I have no hostility to\nnature, but a child's love to it. I expand and live in the warm day like\ncorn and melons. Let us speak her fair. I do not wish to fling stones\nat my beautiful mother, nor soil my gentle nest. I only wish to\nindicate the true position of nature in regard to man, wherein to\nestablish man, all right education tends; as the ground which to\nattain is the object of human life, that is, of man's connection with\nnature. Culture inverts the vulgar views of nature, and brings the\nmind to call that apparent, which it uses to call real, and that real,\nwhich it uses to call visionary. Children, it is true, believe in the\nexternal world. The belief that it appears only, is an afterthought, but\nwith culture, this faith will as surely arise on the mind as did the first.\n\nThe advantage of the ideal theory over the popular faith, is this, that\nit presents the world in precisely that view which is most desirable\nto the mind. It is, in fact, the view which Reason, both speculative\nand practical, that is, philosophy and virtue, take. For, seen in the\nlight of thought, the world always is phenomenal; and virtue\nsubordinates it to the mind. Idealism sees the world in God. It\nbeholds the whole circle of persons and things, of actions and events,\nof country and religion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after\natom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture,\nwhich God paints on the instant eternity, for the contemplation of\nthe soul. Therefore the soul holds itself off from a too trivial and\nmicroscopic study of the universal tablet. It respects the end too\nmuch, to immerse itself in the means. It sees something more\nimportant in Christianity, than the scandals of ecclesiastical history,\nor the niceties of criticism; and, very incurious concerning persons\nor miracles, and not at all disturbed by chasms of historical evidence,\nit accepts from God the phenomenon, as it finds it, as the pure and\nawful form of religion in the world. It is not hot and passionate at\nthe appearance of what it calls its own good or bad fortune, at the\nunion or opposition of other persons. No man is its enemy. It accepts\nwhatsoever befalls, as part of its lesson. It is a watcher more than a\ndoer, and it is a doer, only that it may the better watch.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nSPIRIT.\n\nIT is essential to a true theory of nature and of man, that it should\ncontain somewhat progressive. Uses that are exhausted or that may\nbe, and facts that end in the statement, cannot be all that is true of\nthis brave lodging wherein man is harbored, and wherein all his\nfaculties find appropriate and endless exercise. And all the uses of\nnature admit of being summed in one, which yields the activity of\nman an infinite scope. Through all its kingdoms, to the suburbs and\noutskirts of things, it is faithful to the cause whence it had its origin.\nIt always speaks of Spirit. It suggests the absolute. It is a perpetual\neffect. It is a great shadow pointing always to the sun behind us.\n\nThe aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands\nwith bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest\nman is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.\n\nOf that ineffable essence which we call Spirit, he that thinks most,\nwill say least. We can foresee God in the coarse, and, as it were,\ndistant phenomena of matter; but when we try to define and describe\nhimself, both language and thought desert us, and we are as helpless\nas fools and savages. That essence refuses to be recorded in\npropositions, but when man has worshipped him intellectually, the\nnoblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of God. It is\nthe organ through which the universal spirit speaks to the individual,\nand strives to lead back the individual to it.\n\nWhen we consider Spirit, we see that the views already presented do\nnot include the whole circumference of man. We must add some\nrelated thoughts.\n\nThree problems are put by nature to the mind; What is matter?\nWhence is it? and Whereto? The first of these questions only, the\nideal theory answers. Idealism saith: matter is a phenomenon, not a\nsubstance. Idealism acquaints us with the total disparity between the\nevidence of our own being, and the evidence of the world's being.\nThe one is perfect; the other, incapable of any assurance; the mind is\na part of the nature of things; the world is a divine dream, from\nwhich we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day.\nIdealism is a hypothesis to account for nature by other principles\nthan those of carpentry and chemistry. Yet, if it only deny the\nexistence of matter, it does not satisfy the demands of the spirit. It\nleaves God out of me. It leaves me in the splendid labyrinth of my\nperceptions, to wander without end. Then the heart resists it, because\nit balks the affections in denying substantive being to men and\nwomen. Nature is so pervaded with human life, that there is\nsomething of humanity in all, and in every particular. But this theory\nmakes nature foreign to me, and does not account for that\nconsanguinity which we acknowledge to it.\n\nLet it stand, then, in the present state of our knowledge, merely as a\nuseful introductory hypothesis, serving to apprize us of the eternal\ndistinction between the soul and the world.\n\nBut when, following the invisible steps of thought, we come to\ninquire, Whence is matter? and Whereto? many truths arise to us out\nof the recesses of consciousness. We learn that the highest is present\nto the soul of man, that the dread universal essence, which is not\nwisdom, or love, or beauty, or power, but all in one, and each\nentirely, is that for which all things exist, and that by which they are;\nthat spirit creates; that behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is\npresent; one and not compound, it does not act upon us from without,\nthat is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through ourselves:\ntherefore, that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, does not build up\nnature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree\nputs forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old. As\na plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God; he is\nnourished by unfailing fountains, and draws, at his need,\ninexhaustible power. Who can set bounds to the possibilities of man?\nOnce inhale the upper air, being admitted to behold the absolute\nnatures of justice and truth, and we learn that man has access to the\nentire mind of the Creator, is himself the creator in the finite. This\nview, which admonishes me where the sources of wisdom and\npower lie, and points to virtue as to\n\n          \"The golden key\n     Which opes the palace of eternity,\"\n\ncarries upon its face the highest certificate of truth, because it\nanimates me to create my own world through the purification of my\nsoul.\n\nThe world proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man. It is a\nremoter and inferior incarnation of God, a projection of God in the\nunconscious. But it differs from the body in one important respect. It\nis not, like that, now subjected to the human will. Its serene order is\ninviolable by us. It is, therefore, to us, the present expositor of the\ndivine mind. It is a fixed point whereby we may measure our\ndeparture. As we degenerate, the contrast between us and our house\nis more evident. We are as much strangers in nature, as we are aliens\nfrom God. We do not understand the notes of birds. The fox and the\ndeer run away from us; the bear and tiger rend us. We do not know\nthe uses of more than a few plants, as corn and the apple, the potato\nand the vine. Is not the landscape, every glimpse of which hath a\ngrandeur, a face of him? Yet this may show us what discord is\nbetween man and nature, for you cannot freely admire a noble\nlandscape, if laborers are digging in the field hard by. The poet finds\nsomething ridiculous in his delight, until he is out of the sight of\nmen.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nPROSPECTS.\n\nIN inquiries respecting the laws of the world and the frame of things,\nthe highest reason is always the truest. That which seems faintly\npossible--it is so refined, is often faint and dim because it is deepest\nseated in the mind among the eternal verities. Empirical science is\napt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and\nprocesses, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the\nwhole. The savant becomes unpoetic. But the best read naturalist\nwho lends an entire and devout attention to truth, will see that there\nremains much to learn of his relation to the world, and that it is not\nto be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of\nknown quantities, but is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit,\nby a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility. He will\nperceive that there are far more excellent qualities in the student\nthan preciseness and infallibility; that a guess is often more fruitful\nthan an indisputable affirmation, and that a dream may let us deeper\ninto the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments.\n\nFor, the problems to be solved are precisely those which the\nphysiologist and the naturalist omit to state. It is not so pertinent to\nman to know all the individuals of the animal kingdom, as it is to\nknow whence and whereto is this tyrannizing unity in his\nconstitution, which evermore separates and classifies things,\nendeavoring to reduce the most diverse to one form. When I behold\na rich landscape, it is less to my purpose to recite correctly the order\nand superposition of the strata, than to know why all thought of\nmultitude is lost in a tranquil sense of unity. I cannot greatly honor\nminuteness in details, so long as there is no hint to explain\nthe relation between things and thoughts; no ray upon the\n_metaphysics_ of conchology, of botany, of the arts, to show the\nrelation of the forms of flowers, shells, animals, architecture, to the\nmind, and build science upon ideas. In a cabinet of natural history,\nwe become sensible of a certain occult recognition and sympathy in\nregard to the most unwieldly and eccentric forms of beast, fish, and\ninsect. The American who has been confined, in his own country, to\nthe sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on\nentering York Minster or St. Peter's at Rome, by the feeling that\nthese structures are imitations also,--faint copies of an invisible\narchetype. Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the\nnaturalist overlooks that wonderful congruity which subsists\nbetween man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is\nthe most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and\nfinds something of himself in every great and small thing, in every\nmountain stratum, in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or\natmospheric influence which observation or analysis lay open. A\nperception of this mystery inspires the muse of George Herbert, the\nbeautiful psalmist of the seventeenth century. The following lines\nare part of his little poem on Man.\n\n          \"Man is all symmetry,\n     Full of proportions, one limb to another,\n          And to all the world besides.\n          Each part may call the farthest, brother;\n     For head with foot hath private amity,\n          And both with moons and tides.\n\n          \"Nothing hath got so far\n     But man hath caught and kept it as his prey;\n          His eyes dismount the highest star;\n          He is in little all the sphere.\n     Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they\n          Find their acquaintance there.\n\n          \"For us, the winds do blow,\n     The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow;\n          Nothing we see, but means our good,\n          As our delight, or as our treasure;\n     The whole is either our cupboard of food,\n          Or cabinet of pleasure.\n\n          \"The stars have us to bed:\n     Night draws the curtain; which the sun withdraws.\n          Music and light attend our head.\n          All things unto our flesh are kind,\n     In their descent and being; to our mind,\n          In their ascent and cause.\n\n          \"More servants wait on man\n     Than he'll take notice of. In every path,\n          He treads down that which doth befriend him\n          When sickness makes him pale and wan.\n     Oh mighty love! Man is one world, and hath\n          Another to attend him.\"\n\nThe perception of this class of truths makes the attraction which\ndraws men to science, but the end is lost sight of in attention to the\nmeans. In view of this half-sight of science, we accept the sentence\nof Plato, that, \"poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.\"\nEvery surmise and vaticination of the mind is entitled to a certain\nrespect, and we learn to prefer imperfect theories, and sentences,\nwhich contain glimpses of truth, to digested systems which have no\none valuable suggestion. A wise writer will feel that the ends\nof study and composition are best answered by announcing\nundiscovered regions of thought, and so communicating, through\nhope, new activity to the torpid spirit.\n\nI shall therefore conclude this essay with some traditions of man and\nnature, which a certain poet sang to me; and which, as they have\nalways been in the world, and perhaps reappear to every bard, may\nbe both history and prophecy.\n\n'The foundations of man are not in matter, but in spirit. But the\nelement of spirit is eternity. To it, therefore, the longest series of\nevents, the oldest chronologies are young and recent. In the cycle of\nthe universal man, from whom the known individuals proceed,\ncenturies are points, and all history is but the epoch of one\ndegradation.\n\n'We distrust and deny inwardly our sympathy with nature. We own\nand disown our relation to it, by turns. We are, like Nebuchadnezzar,\ndethroned, bereft of reason, and eating grass like an ox. But who can\nset limits to the remedial force of spirit?\n\n'A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer,\nand shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.\nNow, the world would be insane and rabid, if these disorganizations\nshould last for hundreds of years. It is kept in check by death and\ninfancy. Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the\narms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise.\n\n'Man is the dwarf of himself. Once he was permeated and dissolved\nby spirit. He filled nature with his overflowing currents. Out from\nhim sprang the sun and moon; from man, the sun; from woman, the\nmoon. The laws of his mind, the periods of his actions externized\nthemselves into day and night, into the year and the seasons. But,\nhaving made for himself this huge shell, his waters retired; he no\nlonger fills the veins and veinlets; he is shrunk to a drop. He sees,\nthat the structure still fits him, but fits him colossally. Say, rather,\nonce it fitted him, now it corresponds to him from far and on high.\nHe adores timidly his own work. Now is man the follower of the sun,\nand woman the follower of the moon. Yet sometimes he starts in his\nslumber, and wonders at himself and his house, and muses strangely\nat the resemblance betwixt him and it. He perceives that if his law is\nstill paramount, if still he have elemental power, if his word is\nsterling yet in nature, it is not conscious power, it is not inferior but\nsuperior to his will. It is Instinct.' Thus my Orphic poet sang.\n\nAt present, man applies to nature but half his force. He works on the\nworld with his understanding alone. He lives in it, and masters it by\na penny-wisdom; and he that works most in it, is but a half-man, and\nwhilst his arms are strong and his digestion good, his mind is\nimbruted, and he is a selfish savage. His relation to nature, his power\nover it, is through the understanding; as by manure; the economic\nuse of fire, wind, water, and the mariner's needle; steam, coal,\nchemical agriculture; the repairs of the human body by the dentist\nand the surgeon. This is such a resumption of power, as if a banished\nking should buy his territories inch by inch, instead of vaulting at\nonce into his throne. Meantime, in the thick darkness, there are not\nwanting gleams of a better light,--occasional examples of the action\nof man upon nature with his entire force,--with reason as well as\nunderstanding. Such examples are; the traditions of miracles in the\nearliest antiquity of all nations; the history of Jesus Christ; the\nachievements of a principle, as in religious and political revolutions,\nand in the abolition of the Slave-trade; the miracles of enthusiasm,\nas those reported of Swedenborg, Hohenlohe, and the Shakers; many\nobscure and yet contested facts, now arranged under the name of\nAnimal Magnetism; prayer; eloquence; self-healing; and the wisdom\nof children. These are examples of Reason's momentary grasp of the\nsceptre; the exertions of a power which exists not in time or space,\nbut an instantaneous in-streaming causing power. The difference\nbetween the actual and the ideal force of man is happily figured by\nthe schoolmen, in saying, that the knowledge of man is an evening\nknowledge, _vespertina cognitio_, but that of God is a morning\nknowledge, _matutina cognitio_.\n\nThe problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty, is\nsolved by the redemption of the soul. The ruin or the blank, that we\nsee when we look at nature, is in our own eye. The axis of vision is\nnot coincident with the axis of things, and so they appear not\ntransparent but opake. The reason why the world lacks unity, and\nlies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.\nHe cannot be a naturalist, until he satisfies all the demands of the\nspirit. Love is as much its demand, as perception. Indeed, neither\ncan be perfect without the other. In the uttermost meaning of the\nwords, thought is devout, and devotion is thought. Deep calls unto\ndeep. But in actual life, the marriage is not celebrated. There are\ninnocent men who worship God after the tradition of their fathers,\nbut their sense of duty has not yet extended to the use of all their\nfaculties. And there are patient naturalists, but they freeze their\nsubject under the wintry light of the understanding. Is not prayer\nalso a study of truth,--a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite?\nNo man ever prayed heartily, without learning something. But when\na faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal\nrelations, and see it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time,\nkindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God\ngo forth anew into the creation.\n\nIt will not need, when the mind is prepared for study, to search for\nobjects. The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in\nthe common. What is a day? What is a year? What is summer? What\nis woman? What is a child? What is sleep? To our blindness, these\nthings seem unaffecting. We make fables to hide the baldness of the\nfact and conform it, as we say, to the higher law of the mind. But\nwhen the fact is seen under the light of an idea, the gaudy fable\nfades and shrivels. We behold the real higher law. To the wise,\ntherefore, a fact is true poetry, and the most beautiful of fables.\nThese wonders are brought to our own door. You also are a man.\nMan and woman, and their social life, poverty, labor, sleep, fear,\nfortune, are known to you. Learn that none of these things is\nsuperficial, but that each phenomenon has its roots in the faculties\nand affections of the mind. Whilst the abstract question occupies\nyour intellect, nature brings it in the concrete to be solved by your\nhands. It were a wise inquiry for the closet, to compare, point by\npoint, especially at remarkable crises in life, our daily history, with\nthe rise and progress of ideas in the mind.\n\nSo shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer\nthe endless inquiry of the intellect,--What is truth? and of the\naffections,--What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated\nWill. Then shall come to pass what my poet said; 'Nature is not\nfixed but fluid. Spirit alters, moulds, makes it. The immobility or\nbruteness of nature, is the absence of spirit; to pure spirit, it is fluid,\nit is volatile, it is obedient. Every spirit builds itself a house; and\nbeyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know\nthen, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon\nperfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all\nthat Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house,\nheaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call\nyours, a cobler's trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a\nscholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion\nis as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore,\nyour own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in\nyour mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent\nrevolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit. So fast will\ndisagreeable appearances, swine, spiders, snakes, pests, madhouses,\nprisons, enemies, vanish; they are temporary and shall be no more\nseen. The sordor and filths of nature, the sun shall dry up, and the\nwind exhale. As when the summer comes from the south; the\nsnow-banks melt, and the face of the earth becomes green before it, so\nshall the advancing spirit create its ornaments along its path, and\ncarry with it the beauty it visits, and the song which enchants it; it\nshall draw beautiful faces, warm hearts, wise discourse, and heroic\nacts, around its way, until evil is no more seen. The kingdom of man\nover nature, which cometh not with observation,--a dominion such\nas now is beyond his dream of God,--he shall enter without more\nwonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect\nsight.'","title":"Nature","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":15340}