Sympathetic Vibratory Physics - Sketch of a Philosophy, part 3.

Sympathetic Vibratory Physics - It's a Musical Universe!

Sketch of A Philosophy
Part I, II, III, IV.

THE SKETCHER.

CHAPTER I.

GOD.


As the most important of all intuitions, as one of the "faedera humani gentis," which all men are bound to respect, its witnesses lifting up their voices from the past, the ruins of places of worship, all the world over where no other monuments are to be found, and its witnesses for the present and the future, temples that still stand entire, or that are now being built new from the foundation; as one of the zoopyra of Reason which are never extinguished, except in such states of extreme barbarism or scepticism, that all the other characteristic beliefs of humanity are extinguished along with it, our Philosophy lays its ground in the affirmation of God.

If it be asked what we mean by God, we answer that we mean what is usually meant by the term-that Being, namely, whom it is right and reasonable to worship and adore-a glorious Personality inhabiting immensity and eternity yet unextended and indivisible, immutable and yet ever-living, almighty yet never acting otherwise than according to the views of perfect intelligence-such intelligence being in Him an aboriginal attribute co-ordinate with His irresistible power, the two in one constituting His will, of which the characteristic is perfect goodness.

If it be said that such a conception implies contradictions, we reply that to such seeming contradictions we attach no weight whatever. We hold that they are explained by the theory of the antilogies of consciousness which has been already given, and that, notwithstanding their seeming conflict with each other, they are the nearest approximation to truth which is attainable by the popular consciousness when attempting to compass an articulate conception of the Infinite and the Absolute.

Our philosophy, then, as to its ground is precisely that of the Newtonian epoch; and considering that the spirit of our times in this respect is so different from the spirit of that epoch, let us here remind the reader of the remarks on this subject with which Newton himself closes his Principia-that work which, by the general consent of the Philosophical world, is the greatest and the most valuable of all the works that were ever given to Science. Referring to God, he says-----

"This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of His dominion He is wont to be called Lord God, or Universal Ruler; for God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and DEITY is the dominion of God not over His own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, Your God, the God of ISRAEL, the God of gods, and Lord of Lords; but we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of ISRAEL, the Eternal of gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: these are titles which have no respect to servants. The word God usually signifies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from His true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and, from His other perfections, that He is a supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient-that is, His duration reaches from eternity to eternity; His presence from infinity to infinity; He governs all things and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; He is not duration or space, but He endures and is present. He endures for ever, and He is everywhere present; and by existing always and everywhere, He constitutes duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is everywhere, certainly the Marker and Lord of all things cannot be never and nowhere. Every soul that has perception is though in different times and in different organs of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in duration, co-existent parts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking principle; and much less can they be found in the thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In Him are all things contained and moved; yet neither affects the other. God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity exists always and everywhere. Whence also He is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand, and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily figure, and can therefore neither be seen nor heard, nor touched; nor ought He to be worshipped under the representation of any corporeal thing. We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of anything is we know not. In bodies, we see only their figures and colors, we hear only their sounds, we touch only their outward surface, we smell only their smells, and taste their savors; but their inward substances are not to be known either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds; much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know Him only by His most wise and excellent contrivances of things and final causes; we admire Him for His perfections; but we reverence and adore Him on account of His dominion, for we adore Him as His servants; and a God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. But, by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build; for all our notions of God are taken from the ways of mankind by a certain similitude, which, though not perfect, has some likeness, however. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy."

But here it may perhaps be said, Why quote from others? Since we claim existence for a higher, or at least a less embarrassed mode of vision than that which belongs to ordinary thinking, why not invoke the aid of this "apperception" or "perspection," this "vision of repose," to enable us to obtain and to express the attributes of God more purely and serenely, and free from all semblance of contradiction? To this we answer, that we are contented that the light we claim should be used for the purpose, not of discovery, but of criticism merely, that it should show us the cause of those contradictions which are imminent in consciousness when it addresses itself to any transcendental thesis, and point out to us which to hold as the truth-whether the thesis or the anti-thesis. As to the Attributes of God, attempts have been made to reach them in other forms than those in which they express themselves in consciousness, both by the Asiatic and the European mind. But so long ago as the days of the Patriarch Job, it was discovered that the attempt was hopeless, In emptying the conception of God of the earthly, the anthropomorphic, philosophers in general have only substituted the unearthly, not the heavenly. But yet there are some, perhaps many, and of these Krause* in Europe, and Hickok in America have fallen in my way, whose views I would gladly repeat here.

For myself I cannot find words to express what I may perhaps wish to say; and I cannot help thinking it very desirable that investigators of such matters generally should remember that the vernacular meaning of words is insuperable, and so refrain from putting into unsuitable words that which, as private thought, may be all right and easily intelligible, but which in words comes out no better perhaps than paradox or blank affirmation, stupefying to the brain, and wasting precious time to the reader.

CHAPTER II.


CREATION.


The Being of God, such as has been conceived, implies that all besides Himself must be His creation-that is, either directly caused or permitted by Him; for He is almighty, and He is in possession of immensity and eternity, all space and all time as His own field for the manifestation of His own Glory.
But here an objection is raised on this very ground to the existence of a creation altogether. In the Divine Being it is said all fulness dwells from all eternity, and whatever is, or possibly can be is God. Nor, though it were possible, is it conceivable how a Being, who is perfect in Himself, and a perfect stranger to every want, could ever be visited by a motive to award existence to that which, being finite, cannot but be imperfect.
Now as to the possibility of a creation, it is to be replied that, in a Being who is infinite in Power, there is distinctly implied the power to award existence, though we may not be able to construe in our thought such an act. And while creation must thus be admitted to be possible, there is something in the nature of sensibility which renders a creation probable-nay, leads reason to expect a creation. Thus, among the many things that are known to us, happiness is invaluable, it is that which is very worthy of existence, and very expressive of goodness. Now, happiness is essentially an individualized thing. In the absence of a creation there is no more than one Being who can possibly be happy-that is, the Almighty Himself. By creation, on the other hand, and in a creation, there may possibly be all but infinite millions who may be happy; inasmuch, therefore, as the perfection of God implies that He is perfect in goodness, we are led by a regard to His attributes to infer that He will award existence to a creation.
This argument, it is true, goes only to explain the existence of a creation, and to justify it in so far as that creation consists of sentient creatures, or creatures capable of happiness; but, possibly, much non-sentient scaffolding may be necessary to pave the way for such a creation, and to uphold it. We are not at present in a position to deny that the creation of individualized objects, such as suns, planets, crystals, molecules, plants, may be explicable on the principle of a sound theodicy, though they be not capable of happiness. Such objects may possible be necessary, as a ground on which sentient creatures may stand, or a womb from which they may be brought forth; the whole creation meanwhile marching as straight and as fast as is possible to the production of sentient creatures, as its end and aim. Now, in these conjectures there is nothing that is contradicted by observation of the actual creation so far as we can see into it. On the contrary, by all that we see around us, and of which we form a part, they are verified. Living and sentient creatures, so far as they are actually known to us, require a ground on which they may stand, or a medium in which they may move. Nor is that ground or medium necessary as a support to them merely; it appears to have brought them forth at the first; and it still assists in maintaining their successive generation. Altogether there is ample evidence that the actual creation presses towards and culminates in the production of sentient creatures, and these as vast in variety of species and multitude of individuals as the conditions of sentient existence in our planet will allow.
If it be said that, in order to make our argument of any avail in theodicy, it would need to be so ordered in creation that a state of well being in a sentient creature should be a state of enjoyment to that creature also, we admit the legitimacy of the argument. Nay, we accept it gladly; for nothing is more certain than that such is the fact in the actual creation. A state of well being in every creature ever tends to be a state of enjoyment to that creature. Every sentient creature, when itself normally organized and placed in the midst of its proper environments, enjoys its existence. If human creatures too often supply exceptions to this rule, it is only because the conditions of man's happiness have, in a great measure, been committed to his own keeping, and he has not kept these conditions.
CHAPTER III.

COSMICAL LAW.


The fulness of the Godhead does not forbid a creation. But it excludes from creation certain classes of objects; nay, it assigns contents to creation viewed in reference to eternity. It admits of infinite variety; but it excludes all that would be quite new and singular. No such thing is possible. Whatever is not self-contradictory or self-destructive is already anticipated, has already a place from eternity in the Divine mind, either as knowing or being.
ASSIMILATION.
In the Divine mind there must exist the archetype of everything that is possible. Created substance can only be a mirror which shall reflect, or a luminary that shall radiate, or a treasury that shall dispense the glory and the wealth of the Infinite.
Both in Being and action, therefore, created substance must be essentially assimilated or assimilative. It must be essentially assimilative to the Divine idea which proposes it for existence; and, when actually created, it must be assimilated to that idea, so far as harmony with the other Divine ideas in the same field, that is, the action of its environments, permits.
But to be assimilated and assimilative is to exist and to act according to law; for the idea of law is that of obedience or conformity in acting where the command or conditions of existence are the same. Now the Creator, both in His Being and His attributes, is immutable. And He is as perfect in intelligence as He is in power. His mind and will are ever at one. And we may be sure that He will never put forth His will except in those directions which His intelligence suggests or sanctions. He will never ordain any Being or any thing to act contrary to the nature which He has awarded to that Being or thing; nay, inasmuch as that nature is the expression of His own mind and will in reference to that Being or thing, He will ordain that it should act according to that nature; or rather, in awarding to it that nature, He has, no doubt, appointed and provided that it shall act in accordance with that nature; in other words, He has, no doubt, appointed that the nature or constitution of a being or thing shall also give and be the law of its acting.
Now, it has been shown that the nature of created substance is Assimilative. To this nature, therefore, it will certainly conform. The law of its Being therefore, the law of all finite Being, must be "Assimilation."
Moreover, Assimilation, when viewed in all its possible influences, while it is the cosmical law, must be the only one. For since the unity of the Creator is as perfect as His intelligence and His power, there can be no doubt that the cosmos, however multiple it may be in our eyes, is yet in the mind of the great Creator, but one grand idea realized. All cosmical laws, therefore, must in their ground be but one law. And from what has already appeared, it follows that law must be a law of Assimilation.
Yes; as all creation is, and cannot but be, the manifestation of the attributes of the Creator, which on their part are the harmonious manifestation of His being which is an unity, so must the whole cosmos, however vast and varied, be a harmony, having as its ground an unison. And the relation between the two must ever be this,-that the plastic material shall ever tend to assimilate itself to the archetype; the finite ever tend, so to speak, to emulate the Infinite. And in so doing, surely it cannot but be good and beautiful, because of the nobleness of the aspiration; but yet we can scarcely expect that it will be without a mixture of failure or evil, because of the impossibility of a wholly successful accomplishment of the undertaking.
INDIVIDUATION.
In contemplating the grounds on which a creation becomes probable, the grounds on which reason can justify to itself the existence of Nature as a work of God, we have found as an absolute condition the awarding of existence to such beings at any rate as shall be sentient and capable of enjoyment, and which, therefore, must be individualities, or self-contained beings,-in some sense true unities or monads. Nay, we have found that the glory of a creation, so far as can be discovered by us, must consist in the multiplication, to the utmost degree possible of such individualized Beings; for in the very degree to which there is multiplication of sentient Being, supposing the conditions of their well being provided at the same time, there is multiplication of enjoyment; and enjoyment, so far as we can conceive, is an object worthy enough to be proposed for awarding existence. Not but universal order is worthies aim than individual enjoyment, and self-sacrifice for the restoration or advancement of order worthier than self-gratification when it involves a compromise of order; but these things are so, only because universal order is the condition of such enjoyment as shall be general and of the highest kind. In the unfathomable depths of the ocean of possibilities there may perhaps be something that is more valuable than enjoyment; but it is certain that we cannot conceive such a thing, and never could be brought to vote in its favour. The permanent enjoyment attaching to an action or a state of being, or ultimately resulting from it, is, in fact, the only measure by which we can estimate the value of such action or state, or indeed of anything whatever. If all were perfect apathy, all would be without any value to us.
But it is here needful to be remarked, that, as to the whole amount of enjoyment attaching to an act or line of conduct, we are not competent to estimate it. Nor are we called upon to do so, nor even permitted to attempt it. In human nature, in its normal state, the promptings of sensibility are sheathed in the consciousness of obligation. In consequence of the seeming claims of the present and the near, as compared with those of the future and the distant, the prompting of sensibility constantly tend to mislead in the pursuit of happiness. In this pursuit, therefore, it has been appointed that the prompting of sensibility shall be superseded and left without sanction. A sense of right and wrong has been provided as the guide of life.
But it ought never to be forgotten that the interest of sensibility and of moral obligation are intimately and ultimately, at least, if not immediately or always, in the most perfect harmony. In fulfilling the law of moral obligation, it is impossible to violate the law of sensibility, viewed as a cosmical institution. When the aged saint in the Scottish cottage was overheard in her devotions using words to the effect, that if the holiness of God required that pardon should not be extended to so great a sinner as she felt herself to be, still she could not cease to pray that in the place of punishment, some retired spot might be permitted her, where she might not be exposed to hear the holy name of the God, whom she loved, blasphemed;-this glorious homage to the law of order or holiness(whish is the same), was not a violation of the law of sensibility, much less was it a contempt of it. Though nothing was farther from her thought, yet her prayer in reality implied that a place appointed for suffering might, notwithstanding, be to her a place of enjoyment,-that the hell of the wicked might, nevertheless, be a heaven to her. And, indeed, how could it ever be otherwise? Order or holiness on the one hand, and well being or happiness on the other, are intimately and abidingly co-ordinate.
In proposing the enjoyment of creatures, therefore, as the motive to creation in so far as that creation itself is concerned, we do not conceive a lower order of motive. On the contrary, law and order are to us valuable only as the safeguards of enjoyment. In spite of all thinking that looks elsewhere, or seeks for other terms, happiness must be the haven and Sabbath of our thought, the last word among all the reasons which could possibly be assigned by us for the awarding of existence to a creation. But enjoyment implies individuality. The multiplication of enjoyment implies the multiplication of individualities. And hence, we are to look in the cosmos for a powerfully operating law of individuation, or of the partitionment of being, supposing being to be previously or at any time undivided.
UNIFICATION.
But from the presiding unity of the Creator, and the assimilative character of created being, it follows that individuation of partitionment must have its limits; nay, it follows that there must be another cosmical operation in quite another direction. Supposing created Being to be now existing in multitude, there must be an operation tending to reduce the number of unities in that multitude,-in a word, to reduce that number until these two opposite tendencies-that to individuation on the one hand, and this to confluence and unification on the other - are in equilibrio. This is so plain that it needs no further words.
Such, then, are the cosmical laws which our theory of nature, as a creation of an infinite and perfect Creator, suggests to us. As they have presented themselves, they are three in number. But we shall find, as we proceed, that they are one in their ground, and that the law of Assimilation gives both the other two, which, while they are its offspring, are also manifestations of it.
CHAPTER IV.


FINITE BEING.


The foregoing laws lead us to anticipate the existence of created reality, not as one, but as many, with a continual play between greater and lesser in point of number. But here the question occurs. What shall we think of reality, when regarding it in its most comprehensive point of view? Shall we say, with some, that it is merely the aggregate of all its attributes, and nothing more? Or shall we say, with others, that it is the substance in which its attributes inhere? Our views as to the constitution of consciousness prompt us to decline taking either side in this controversy, and to attempt rather to reduce these seemingly conflicting views to an unity. Now, such an unity we find in the conception of reality as a potentiality, a something to which it belongs to develop itself into action, but which is such, that in so doing it does not exhaust itself. Every other conception of reality will be found to be quite unprofitable in philosophy. But on this subject I shall not enlarge, especially after what has been said on the subject already, when treating of consciousness.
More important it is to take into consideration the question whether there are in creation beings which are radically dissimilar to each other, or, as we might say, dissimilar both in attribute and in substance; or whether created reality, in what variety soever it may manifest itself, is yet in its ground universally one and the same?
Now here it is to be hoped at least that the latter opinion will ultimately prevail; for if the former, then the cause of philosophy and science is hopeless. If there be in creation beings and things more of fewer, which are radically dissimilar, then there can be nothing better for intelligence to learn than empirical facts and empirical laws. In that case, an intellectual system of the universe which surely is the proper aim of philosophy and science, can never be construed in the mind.
But in defence of this hypothesis of essentially heterogeneous being and things, it may be asked with seeming cogency how, on the supposition of only one kind of being or reality in its ground, can we possibly account for phenomena so diverse as those of matter and of mind? Now, for a long time, it must be admitted, this identification, even as to a common ground, was deemed in philosophy to be impossible. The essence of matter, it was said, is extension; the essence of mind is thought; and between these two-extension and thought-there is no common term, nor is there any possibility of bringing them to an unity. But that phase of philosophical thinking has now passed away; and though men in general still feel that body and soul are a complete contrast, yet physiologists in general are now of another mind. They have run into the opposite extreme. The turn of modern thought is not only to bring body and mind into most close relationship with each other, but to identify them even as substance and attribute. And, what is certainly very remarkable, all things considered, is that in proceeding to identify them, many make Body the ground of mind, and the only reality in the case! Perhaps even the majority of physicists and physiologists in the present day regard mind merely as a function or phenomenon,-merely as the outcome and manifestation of the physical forces, co-operating under certain conditions, - merely as an ideal efflorescence of the nervous system, and nothing more. To many the whole universe is a purely mechanical system, and, according to the view, all philosophy and science ought to be merely the exposition of an all-pervading, everywhere prevailing materialism, and nothing more.
At the same time it is not denied-it cannot be denied-that mental attributes or phenomena are of a much higher order than material properties and phenomena; that volition, for instance, or self-directive power, the VIS VOLUNTATIS, is a much higher attribute than mere inertia, or the VIS INERTIAE; that desire and aversion felt towards objects are higher attributes than mere attraction or repulsion; that self-preservation is higher than mere resilience or elastic action; that an idea is of a higher order than a form or diagram in space; and that thought is higher than mere motion in space. In a word, it is not denied, and it cannot be, that mental functions and phenomena generally, are of a higher order than merely mechanical functions and phenomena. Supposing there to be in its ground only one kind of substance, then the question between spiritualism and materialism is this,-Are we to suppose that the higher birth gives also the lower, or that the lower gives birth to the higher?
Of these alternatives spiritualism affirms the former. It posits, as the basis of all philosophy and science, the existence of a supreme Mind, and does its best (what, indeed, it has done as yet only indifferently well) to show, in the relation of matter to mind, that matter is something quite subordinate to mind, and incapable of attaining, under any circumstances, to the attributes and phenomena of mind. Materialism, on the other hand, sets out with matter and force, as the first of all things, and holds that mental phenomena come into existence among material phenomena for the first time when physical forces succeed in constructing nervous systems. Such is materialism. It is impossible to exaggerate its consequences if it ever should become the popular belief, for it annihilates at once all the hopes and all the fears connected with a life hereafter. If it be a mistake, it is the greatest of all possible mistakes. Happily it exists in opposition to a world-wide belief. What, then, let us ask, is its scientific claim to regard? Now, to this it is to be answered that positively it has nothing to support it but the fact, that mind can be observed by us only in connection with brain, and that it is apparently proportional in value to the value of the brain with which we find it associated. Materialism exists in direct opposition to scientific principle. The science of mechanics can prove that every possible combination of mechanical forces must have a mechanical resultant which is truly and fully the representative of that combination of forces. Exact science gives no opening at all for such a conception, as that at some moment when the combination of forces has become complicated to a certain extent a transformation takes place of mechanical force into feeling and thought. Such a transformation is besides utterly inconceivable. If it took place, the law of continuity would be completely violated. One thing would arise out of another thing which has nothing in common with it at all. The objections to materialism in a scientific point of view are insurmountable. The only way of getting rid of them is to exclude them, to affirm that we know nothing at all about the matter, and, as the ground of materialistic belief, to fall back upon the well-known fact, that mental phenomena are seen only in connection with a cerebral organization, and thence to conclude, that they are appearances merely, and that the brain is the thing, the only thing.
But this is an inference which is confessedly made wholly in the dark. Here one thing is concluded from another as its direct and immediate sequence, when for aught that is known there may be many links between. Nay, this inference is made, not in the dark only, or in complete ignorance of the contents of the field in which it is made, but it is contrary to the teachings of physiology in all cases that are in any degree analogous. This is, indeed, implicitly affirmed by the materialist himself, when he maintains (as has been referred to, p.27) that the brain secretes thought just as the liver secretes bile. All the other glandular structures give peculiar secretions, each its own. All these secretions are merely molecular or material, no doubt, but all of them are things of the highest synthesis, and consist of the most composite molecules. As to the womb with its appendages, whose morphological analogy to the brain (or rather, to the myo-neuro-cerebral system) is of all the organs the most perfect, it has for its function to cherish and to develop an embryo, which is something of a much higher order than a molecule, or a gall-bladder full of bile, or the like. In order to place the cerebral organism, therefore, in analogy with glandular organism in general, the brain also ought to have for its office to cherish and to develop some Being or thing distinct from itself and having a substantive existence. Nor does it follow of necessity that that creature of the brain shall, like the secretions of the glands, or the creature of the womb, be merely a molecular aggregate, a liquid or solid, and either amorphous or organized. All the secretions, and indeed all the functionings of the animal organism, are but means to an end; and that end manifestly is the construction of the nervous system viewed as operating in the fulfillment of its special office. Were it wonderful, then, if that fulfillment implied the giving to material nature a Being or thing of a higher order than the merely molecular and material? Were it wonderful if the molecular synthesis, which we see to be so powerfully operative in all the other glands, should be so much more powerful in the brain, that instead of effecting the placing of elements of force in juxtaposition merely, it should be able to effect their confluence into a new unity, so that in the focus of action of the myo-neuro-cerebral system, existence should be awarded, through the action of the brain, to a new centre of force, constituted of so great an amount or intensity of being or potentiality, that it should be wholly emancipated from those trammels which characterize matter, and manifest those higher properties of perception, volition, consciousness, for the sake of which creation exists, and which we hold to belong to all individualized Beings, when the quantity of Being or potentiality which constitutes them has not been weakened by attenuation to such a degree that instead of mental endowments, there are left only those residua of power which constitute the properties of matter-namely, instead of a VIS VOLUNTATIS, a VIS INERTIAE merely; instead of desire, attraction merely; instead of aversion, repulsion merely, and so on?
And here let it not be hastily inferred that such a theory implies the transformation of matter into mind. There is every reason to believe, as will appear more fully hereafter, that the material element possesses such self-conservative force, that it is wholly permanent in nature, at least in and around our planet. It is not in the molecular or ponderable parts of the brain that the material is to be sought which may possibly be the mother element of the mind. That ponderable matter is indeed everything to the anatomist. But to the natural philosopher, to the true physiologist who endeavors to take an all-embracing view of the contents of the field which he is investigating, that ponderable matter is a mere scaffolding for the ætherial matter that is present, the matter of light, in which the mind really dwells, and by which we should expect that it would be fed and constituted. Now, in the ætherial element, Being or Reality is so attenuated, compared with what it is in the material element, that its potentiality in general, and consequently its self-conservative power, or its resistance to confluence, and its incapacity for constituting a true unity of a higher order, must be much less than it is in the material element; and, for anything that appears to the contrary, its individuality may be overcome by an adequate synthetic apparatus such as the myo-neuro-cerebral.
By this view, which we maintain has the analogy of all nature in its favour, that fact which is the only one that gives countenance to materialism is adequately explained-namely, the fact that there is an observed co-ordination of mental phenomena with the organization and the actual functioning of the brain; for while the power and the perfection of the mother and nurse will normally be expressed in the power and perfection of the child, the law of reciprocal assimilation provides, that during the whole period of organized life, mind and body shall be continuously assimilating, each itself to the other, and thus producing that interdependence and sympathy which is so universally felt and acknowledged. And in order to every outward manifestation of mind there will be the necessity that the currents in the brain shall be duly circulating-a condition on which so much has of late been built in the interest of materialism.
By the view now advanced all the phenomena are explained much more fully and intelligibly than they are attempted to be explained by materialism; and thus the ground is taken away from under the feet of that detestable hypothesis which excludes from the field of science altogether, and refers to an exercize of faith merely, a belief in God, in merit, in immortality, in all that is most ennobling in the thoughts and most encouraging to the aspirations of humanity.
Nor does the view which has now been suggested demand any supposition as to the nature of Being in general, or of any Being in particular more elaborate than this, that power as it is known to exist, endowment in the individual, is always porportional to the amount or intensity of the substance or potentiality constituting that individual. And is not this a conception so simple that it, in fact, possesses the value of a mathematical equation?
According to this conception, we obtain a system of Beings which, commencing as near as we can reach the throne of the great Creator (which is yet at an infinite distance)--gives us a hierarchy of spiritual Beings ranging from the highest that is compatible with a finite nature, through all orders downwards until we reach the region where all mental endowments have vanished, and Being is found in the most attenuated, and consequently the most diffused state, viz, in the universal æther.
If it be asked, as at this stage of our progress it might be with seeming cogency, why, in being partitioned and individualized in order that the number of centres of enjoyment might be multiplied, should finite Being have been attenuated in the individual to such a degree that ultimately the individual is no longer capable of feeling, and thus the very end aimed at be frustrated by overdoing,-the answer is, that the cosmical law of assimilation insists on this result, providing, however, at the same time, that after this extreme analysis, sensibility shall be restored by a coordinate synthesis. The great Creator is infinite as well as absolute. He has for an attribute immensity no less than unity; and immensity, when construed in consciousness and in reference to finite Being, is represented by all space-boundless space. Finite Being, therefore, in assimilating itself to the Infinite, needed as far as possible to fill all space. But being finite, this it could do only by undergoing the utmost attenuation possible. Hence, according to our theory, the universal æther, all apathetic though in itself it be.
But, shall this extreme attenuation of being be regarded as an evil or a departure from the interests of sensibility? No, surely. The universal æther is the medium of light and color, and all visible glory, and we know not how many genial influences besides. Moreover, in it our philosophy, while admitting a hierarchy of Spirits, provides at the same time for them a medium in which they may dwell, than which we know not of any, and can conceive none that could be more kindred or congenial.
As to the material element and the molecular world, it presents itself as the development of a mathematical necessity; not on that account, however, outcast, or useless in the economy of the universe, but, on the contrary, a beautiful episode in the epic of creation, appointed as an apparatus for redeeming, so to speak, or for bringing back Being or Reality from its most attenuated and powerless state to a state of power,-in a word, for restoring the ætherial to the spiritual, giving life to light. But of that hereafter.
Created Being, then, according to our philosophy, is neither "nothing," nor yet is it "that which fills space." But it is an extensively self-manifesting something existing in multitude, the individuals constituted by a greater or a lesser amount, or intensity of Being or substance, whence it results that in the higher orders of Being self-manifesting power becomes two-fold, acting both outwardly and inwardly, or reflectively, thus rendering the individual self-manifesting to self, that is, a Spirit. If it be said that the term spirit implies more than this, more than consciousness, namely, life and liberty, we add, that to us created Being is in no case that which is dead or wholly inert, in no sense that which shall be a clog upon the infinite (which, however, seems to be the common notion). To us, created Being is in itself like the Creator, power, life, free life, only it is not left to itself in the unguided play of such a dangerous nature. It is placed either altogether, or more or less, under cosmical law that is under the Divine Attributes radiating, the voice of God echoing, and embodying itself in space and time, and thus constituting creation a cosmos. And now as to spirit much requires to be said.
CHAPTER V.


SPIRIT: ITS NATURE AND ENDOWMENTS.


When treating of consciousness something was said of Beings of the order of spirits. But at that stage of our development nothing could be said of the cosmical laws. At that time we were able to speak of Beings as self-manifesting things only, and that to a distance from their centres, or more generally as extensively impressive and impressible centralized powers. We know now more than this. We know now that inasmuch as all reality is the creation of an all-Perfect Creator, it can neither exist nor act in a manner which is wholly singular or anomalous. It can only exist or act so as to manifest and be assimilated to the Creator, and be the expression of His mind and will, or if it be an individualized power, or will, then possibly in a contrary way. And hence the cosmical law which we have already laid down. Hence assimilative action the law of the cosmos, considered as such.
And here a primary inquiry presents itself. If the law of assimilation is the very order of the created universe, shall we not have an order of Beings which shall be fully expressive of that law-an order of Beings, in a word, which shall be the image of God in the whole of His Being, in so far as the finite can image the Infinite? Such an expectation certainly finds a first place in our theory. Now for its discussion it first asks the question, What is that special condition which shall make a Being to be the image of God? What is that attribute which, being withdrawn from a Being, that Being shall cease to be the image of God? Now, to this the answer undoubtedly is,-the possession of truly individualized power, that is, a potentiality or energy within itself, which shall be a Cause in its own right, and see its own way, that is, a principle of volition, in one word, a person. If we deny this of God, we deny God Himself in that sense of the name which all humanity claims to be the true sense; and if we deny it of man, we deny man himself in that character which the consciousness in the breast of every man affirms man to be.
This, then, when we descend from the Creator to the creation, we find to be the first order of Beings which we are to look for in the cosmos-an order of Beings, namely, possessed of truly individualized power more or less, that is, free will or liberty.
But how, it may here be legitimately asked, can we suppose that existence should ever be awarded or permitted to Beings of such a nature? Is it not, may be said, of the very essence of liberty to resist a law imposed from without? And thus, if there were Beings in the image of God, must not these Beings, in virtue of the very make of their minds, be rebels against God, and, in a word, be as gods themselves? This is a grave question, and it suggests many thoughts, and explains many things. But we have here only to affirm that such an issue is not necessary or unavoidable. Thus, in the constitution of such liberty as is true and perfect so far as it goes, there is implied the opposite of every tendency as well as the tendency itself. The tendency to rebel, therefore, in a spirit which is perfectly free must be accompanied by a tendency in quite an opposite direction. The same actions or manner of life which, when viewed solely as expressions of an external authority, awake the recoil of liberty, may, in another point of view, become the free spirit's own choice. The spirit, enlightened by reason, and feeling, as a free spirit ever must, those channels is which its life and liberty can flow most fully, may find them, nay, is sure to find them in that order which the all-wise and the Almighty Creator has appointed. The love or law of liberty, therefore, in an enlightened spirit leads it directly to maintain the cosmical order, to keep the appointed law. It is only when existing in a state of ignorance that a free spirit tends to be rebellious. In the argument against the existence of liberty in the creature, founded on the native tendency of liberty to rebel against authority, there would be cogency only if liberty had been bestowed without any provision having been made for the enlightenment of the free spirit. But means of enlightenment have been provided. The same Divine appointment, the same law of Assimilation, in providing for those creatures, who should be most fully entitled to the name of "the image of God," the dangerous gift of liberty, provides also for the enlightenment and guidance of their liberty certain principles, the principles of Religious and Moral Obligation and Reason.

RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION.


God is at once a Perfect Intelligence and an Almighty Power; and from this twofold consideration, in virtue of the law of assimilation, there must result in man a twofold endowment, namely, REASON, the impress on him of the Divine Intelligence and RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION, the impress of the Divine Power.
Along with these (even as an ember of Deity itself) man has liberty, and that in the position of spectator of all the IDEAS which reason supplies, and all the DUTIES which obligation imposes. He is free to ramble amongst them, and to make his choice.
The imminence of religious obligation in the mind of man when existing in its normal relations, fully appears; but it also fully appears that it must continue as an authority or feeling of obligation merely, and cannot be developed into articulate ideas. We can easily conceive how the Divine attributes could mirror themselves in the human soul as ideas, as reason, or laws of belief; but we cannot conceive how the Divine Being, or Power, could be represented in this way or otherwise than as an abiding impress merely of that Power. Besides the laws of belief, therefore, and the ideas of reason, there ought, under the law of assimilation, to be in the mind an abiding impress of the Being and Power of God.
Nor will the mind be altogether unconscious of that impress, or altogether unaware of the source from whence it comes. As in all other cases of synthetic relationship the soul, as herself a proper power, must react. And what, in the midst of so much darkness and yet so much power, can such reaction be but a determination in the soul towards God-a fixed looking of the soul towards God, responsive, or, if not actually responsive, uneasy to respond to the impress of God's Being upon her? And since that Being, so far as it is felt or known, must give an impress of the Omnipotent, the Adorable, what, in terms of consciousness, must the corresponding impression be but a conscious obligation to God, a felt call by God to worship Him, and, in so far as His will is discovered or conceived, to obey Him?
And thus our philosophy enables us to understand both the universality of religion in the world, and the vast breadth and variety that there are both in religious objects and observances. According to this view, religion in its essence, and viewed apart from reason, must manifest itself merely as a conscious obligation, an uneasiness to worship. And, accordingly, we find that worship is universal. But when acting alone, this native religiousness of the heart must manifest itself as an obligation to worship merely. It does not and cannot give the object of worship in His true character, that true character is given in reason only, or by the aid of revelation. Hence in any individual, or any race where reason is in abeyance, any object which happens to interest the imagination will be assumed as an object of worship. Religious obligation when acting analytically, will discharge itself in Feticism, when acting synthetically, in Pantheism.
In proportion as reason is developed on the other hand, then, under the law of the equivalence of energy, whatever its form, the sense of religious obligation, the constitutional uneasiness to worship, will tend to become feeble. But, at the same time, the object of worship will be brighter and more glorious in a higher degree. The deliberate contemplation of His glory ought, therefore, now normally to awake adoration no less than the feeling of an obligation to be religious did before. The practice of religion, therefore, ought not to abate as mental culture or intellectual light advances. Only the motive to worship will no longer be felt to be an instinct which it causes great uneasiness not to gratify, but a free movement in the light of reason and intelligence towards that which is seen to be most truly love-worthy and adorable.
And thus we are clearly taught what the spirit of true religion is from first to last. Its animating motive is no calculation of self-interest or advantage either here or hereafter. However valuable such motives may be, as leading ultimately to true religion, neither the hope of reward nor the fear of punishment enters into true religion. True religion in its essence is purely an assimilation of the soul, a conformity to God, the adoring contemplation and culture in the mind of the Glory of God expressing itself in a soul-delighting flow towards communion with Him.

MORAL OBLIGATION.


In order to be enabled to place in juxtaposition those faculties in man which are most nearly allied, let us here call to mind that not only do God and the soul exist, but also the world or the universe. Here, then, is a third Being or Power, and plainly it is one of great potency. Under the law of assimilation it must needs act with great influence upon the soul. The mind must tend to be impressed constitutionally not only by a Divine, but by a cosmical assimilative action. And of this action let us here ask what must be the general character? It is commonly supposed in the present day that the external world, in so far as the mind is concerned, exhausts itself in giving sensations or perceptions of individual external objects. Now, perception is no doubt a fine example of assimilative action, as we shall soon see. But the perception of individual objects, one by one, cannot exhaust the assimilative influence of the world as a whole. The world as a whole, as an economy, and not a multitude of particular objects merely, must act assimilatively, and as such must impress the soul. Now the world in this point of view quite transcends knowledge. Its assimilative action on the mind, therefore, cannot produce in the latter clear and distinct ideas. It cannot produce an impression more definite than that which results from the being of God, and therefore nothing more definite than an uneasiness to fall in with the universe so as to sustain it. In a word, the assimilative action upon the soul, of the world as a whole, must produce feeling only, and that an "obligation" to maintain its economy. And hence, as that economy is liable to be grossly misconceived, we may have a Feticism in morals as well as in religion. But even at the worst, all will not be utterly wrong.
We may go a step further. Thus the economy of the world, even when regarded as the universe, and in all its details, is undoubtedly expressed accurately overhead by the idea of "Order." All the parts are so adjusted to each other, and work so as to form one harmonious whole. This the cosmical law of assimilation secures. The functioning of each part is so adjusted as to perpetuate the being, nay, the well being of the whole. The present is harmoniously interwoven with the past and the future. Every object, when it is in its right place in nature is kindred with its environments. The individual is a member of the family. The family is a a member of the nation. There is a community, and there ought to be a communion of nations. Each works in all and all in each. A reciprocal assimilative influence operates universally. And of this the expression in the consciousness of the human soul, when that soul is in a duly impressible state, ought to be a sense of obligation to observe, and, so far as in her lies, to maintain the universal order from the impress of which she cannot escape, however great the local disorder in the midst of which she may happen to be placed at the time. Now, this consciousness which never ceases to insist upon order as the right thing, when viewed in the face of the fact that a man may, in virtue of the freedom of his will traverse and violate it if he please, exists, and is named moral approbation. And thus, under the law of assimilation, and assuming with all mankind the existence of the World as well as that of God and of the Soul, along with religious obligation, we find man the subject of moral obligation also.
These two obligations are justly regarded as distinct and as belonging to distinct spheres of duty. But they mutually support each other, and are beautifully interwoven, and indeed agree in most of their features. Thus, as in religious obligation the soul desires simply to acquit itself of the duty called for, apart altogether from consideration of reward or punishment, so in moral obligation does the soul desire to acquit herself of her duties, cost what they may. Pure morality is no less disinterested than true religion. Not that either of them can possibly be realized without bringing in due time its own reward along with it. The economy of the world, which implies a harmony between the well being or the parts and the well being of the whole, is so complete, that, when obeying the behests either of religious or moral obligation, it is only in very exceptional cases that even the individual permanently suffers. So deep-laid, indeed, is this harmony between well-being and well-doing, whatever the inner motion of the action, that let all the individuals in any community, or let all the world, adopt as the end and aim of all their actions a true and enlightened self-interest, and the general result will be the same as if each acted purely from conscious obligation to do what is right, without any view to his own advantage at all. But between the inner life and character of the two classes of actions, or rather of actors, there would be this difference,-that those who are acting from interested motives only are, in so doing, selling their birthright as the children of God, nay, as members in the brotherhood of humanity, for a mess of private enjoyment which generally issues in disappointment at last; while those who act from a sense of duty, in so far as they acquit themselves aright, always find themselves strong and happy at the time, and have nothing to fear from the future. And no wonder; for they live in the light of God's countenance, and move along with the glorious tide of the universe; while the merely selfish man, with many clouds overhead, is ever struggling against that tide unconscious of its existence, and can swim in eddies only, which he mistakes for the universe.
REASON.


We have already seen, when treating of consciousness, that there belongs to a Being, when powerful enough to be free more or less, and when constituting a member in the universe, the power of manifesting itself to itself, and of knowing, to a certain extent at least, what itself is. Hence, from the mind's own substance and activity, there results a knowledge of Being and Action, as also of Action arising out of Being, and therefore there results a knowledge of Cause.
Hence, also, from the mind's own identity, along with its life or changefulness, there results a knowledge of identity and change, that is, Identity and Difference; and so on.
But such knowledge must be of a most inarticulate kind, and would be better named nascent than innate. If the mind had no other source of knowledge but self, nothing could be distinctly conceived or truly known by it. To be distinctly informed as to anything, the mind must be informed from more sources than one. As in still water a ripple forms only at the meeting of steams from different sources, so in the mind, with regard to particular knowledge, more influences than one must always concur in forming it; and the more these influences are similar to each other, provided they come from different quarters, the more is the resulting knowledge satisfactory.
It may, perhaps, be thought that such a statement stands in opposition to Sir Isaac Newton's first rule of reasoning in philosophy, which claims also the authority of Aristotle in its favour. That rule is to the effect, that "we are to admit no more causes of natural things, but such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearance." But in this announcement of the rule (though not in the comment on it which Newton gives) this philosopher has saved philosophy by the introduction into it of the term "true." Doubtless we are not to admit more causes of natural things than such as are true. But, even immediately after Newton's own day, by John Locke and others, and more especially in our own day by Sir Wm. Hamilton of Edinburgh and others, this rule, under the name of the Law of Parsimony, has been made to assume a character which is wholly subjective, and which breaks loose from nature altogether. Having found or fancied some hypothesis that seems adequate as a cause for a phenomenon, we are told not to look for any others-nay, to reject the claims and pretensions of all others. The results of may own observation of nature is to the effect that no such law, as a law of parsimony, exists. Instead of being guided by parsimony, nature delights in dispensing her wealth, and in enriching every object. To make sure of the fulfillment of her economy, in order to realize her phenomena, she usually makes concurrent causes to bear upon each, although, in ordinary circumstances, it may seem to us as if one of these causes might have been sufficient. Further, lest any of those which are brought into action should be frustrated, she has usually other causes in reserve in the same field. Nature absolutely scouts this supposed law of parsimony. That law would dictate, for instance, that the venous system was adequate to account for the return of the fluids of the body to the heart, but nature gives the lymphatic system also; nay, in addition to this, a centripetal movement of the fluids through the tissues, and in opposition to all obstacles. The law parsimony would dictate that the sickliness of a plant, growing under an umbrageous tree, was fully accounted for by want of sunlight, for shadow alone would undoubtedly produce such sickliness. But to this cause nature adds others-the consumption, for instance, both by the foliage of the tree above, and by the roots beneath, of the carbonic acid, ammonia, and moisture, which the sickly plant required, in order to be in health. And so in other cases-perhaps in every case. Not only are there those classes of causes which Aristotle long ago so happily signalized, but there are concurrent causes of the same class; and the limitation to knowledge, which the method of modern science is now occasioning, are in no small measure owing to a neglect or exclusion of this fact. Is any knowledge innate, or is it all the product of experience? Such is the alternative which this law of parsimony dictates. But nature recognizes no such question. The answer is, that from the mind's own Being and make, it acquires much of what may indeed be entitled to the name of knowledge; but, in order to acquire its knowledge, such as it is, the mind most be where it is. If the mind were placed in solitude, out of all relations. and in outer darkness, without previous experience, all thought and feeling would certainly remain for ever at zero. The ideas which, independently of its environments, exist for the mind, are like the veins in the marble which is yet in the block. Practice, reflection, and experience, like the sculptor's chisel, are needed to bring them out, and then they become distinct objects of thought.
But the case of a mind left altogether to itself need not be considered by us. The mind never is, and never can be wholly alone. The Being of God is always imminent. And as the mind, in virtue of its intimate receptivity, is always undergoing assimilation either to itself as it is, and thus affirming conscious identity, or reproducing its former by acquired states, and thus remembering, &c., so must it be always undergoing, more or less, according as its receptivity in that direction is greater or less, assimilation to the Divine Being and His attributes. It must be continually or constitutionally penetrated, so to speak, with a nascent knowledge of the Omnipotent and the Infinite, the Absolute and the Perfect. In a word, in virtue of the law of assimilation, and the abiding presence at once of the soul to herself, and of God to the soul, there must exist in the soul those abiding modes of mental action which go by the name of First Principles, Laws, belief, or, in one word, Reason. And that they are justly entitled to the names of principles or laws fully appears from the genesis, and the conditions of existence which we have assigned to them. Thus they cannot but speak with authority; for they are supreme. And they must eventually oust all others if they cannot be brought to coexist harmoniously with them; for they are the most deeply seated, and, in virtue of the imminence of their cause, they must be reproduced as fast as they are obliterated or forgotten. They must, in short, be characterized by that very authority and necessity which are ascribed to the principle of reason or the laws of belief.
And now, by their aid, something like definite knowledge seems to be possible, or rather, indeed, inevitable. This new manifestation of Being, that of the Divine Being, which the soul acquires in virtue of her position as living and moving, and having her Being in Him, must enter into synthesis with that which the soul has from herself as Being; and that synthetic holding in the synthetico-analytical rhythm of the mind, being subjected to analysis, it appears certain that there must be a differentiation of the idea of mere Being, indefinite Being, into that of infinite Being on the one hand, and finite Being on the other, with their respective attributes. There is reason for inferring that the soul can now no longer escape from the conclusion that she is herself a finite Being, while, at the same time, an infinite Being is imminent. Happy for her if she feels the latter fact as strongly as she ought! and can keep self in its own subordinate place. But usually, alas! it is quite otherwise. Usually, almost unavoidably, self, the EGO, as soon as it has acquired the consciousness of its own existence, seats itself on the throne, and construes all things merely as its own attendants. Its conclusions are no better than a travesty of things as they are. "Man, the measure of all things," "Protagorus for ever," that is the "ticket" for the day. The greater part of our so-called modern science consists of this sort of thing.-But not so in the soul that is sensitively alive to the glorious impress of the Omnipotent and the Infinite. Not so in the adoring Spirit which, after and under the Great Creator, loves all Being, and, that it may not be put to the pain of denial, duly watches its own gates against the entrance of error.

IDEA.


But why should I avoid the term "idea," which is so constantly employed in this field, and has been so constantly employed ever since mental philosophy has had an existence? Certainly not, because such a term, and the phenomenon which it denotes, are alien to our philosophy! On the contrary, the universal function of our great cosmical law is Assimilation, and what term could express better the corresponding phenomenon than the term Idea? An idea, it is usually said, cannot be an image of that of which it is the idea, though the term etymologically considered implies as much. Now, according to our theory of ideas, it need not be an image. In order to be an idea, it is enough if it be an Assimilation of a kind appropriate to the object of which it is the idea. It is certainly bold to affirm that in no case nor sense whatever can an idea be an image. But in some cases, at least, it certainly is not. It obviously is not in reference to the ideas which belong to the sphere of Reason and Obligation, both religious and moral.

Thus our cosmical law of Assimilation finds ready made in the language, both of philosophy and common talk, a term expressive of its characteristic product in the spiritual world-namely, "idea." And the soul, in virtue of her position in the universe, as ever in her own presence, and ever in the presence of God, is put constitutionally in possession of the idea of reason.

And here it might seem as if an articulate enumeration of these ideas were desirable. But such an enumeration, in order to be intelligible, would be possible only in relation to other ideas acquired by the mind in virtue of its relation to the world around it. And for such an enumeration, therefore, this is plainly not the place. But the sooner we come to that place the better.
PERCEPTION.


Now, then, let us turn to those phenomena which are determined in the mind by its mundane relations. And yet, while we do so, let us do it with the greatest rapidity; for the mind is known to us only as embodied, that is, specially invested by an individualized structure, consisting of elements different from itself of which we as yet know nothing, but of which the imminence to the mind is so intense, compared with that of external nature, that a confusion, if not even a fusion, of mental and bodily phenomena is to be apprehended, and, at any rate, the reciprocity is so complete that an unraveling and a successful analysis of it in the actual state of science is quite hopeless.
There are, indeed, what are named "the avenues of the senses," "the five gates of knowledge;" and if they were true avenues and gates merely, through which the self-manifesting power of external objects, and the co-ordinate receptivity of the mind, could act and react without obstruction, then under the law of Assimilation there would result, as soon as object and subject came face to face with one another, all that is implied by a clear and distinct perception of the object looked at. The mind, in submitting directly, in so far as its inner activity or personality would permit, to the assimilative influence of the object (to whole sphere of assimilative action no limit as to distance can be assigned), would be assimilated to that object in a way which is accurately described, when it is said that the mind would perceive that object, but which it is vain to attempt to illustrate by mechanical constructions or imagery of any kind.
But such direct and simple perception is not possible to man in his embodied state. There are obstacles in the way. The universal æther, at all events, existing everywhere in the outward, as also in the axes of the nervelets of sensation, if indeed they be clear of more gross matter, is in the way; and when it is at rest, or acting otherwise than according to a certain rhythm, it puts a stop to all perception of external objects. In that case it acts with regard to the self-manifesting power of such objects like an absorptive medium with regard to light. But when, by an external object, its particles are made to move rhythmically with certain forms and dimensions of motion, it is an obstacle to their self-manifesting power no longer. In the lines of such motion it is nearly, if not perfectly, transparent. During the day distant objects, and during the night even the fixed stars, manifest themselves to the human mind. That manifestation, indeed, depending as it does on a mode of motion in the æther, cannot take place otherwise than according to the laws of motion and elasticity. It must, therefore, be always in perceptive, and a projection merely of the true form of the object, not that true form itself. In a word, it can be a symbolic manifestation only; and, in the human species, it is only after many mistakes that the symbol comes to manifest the real object to the mind. But, in other species which exist from the first wholly in harmony with nature, and in which perceptivity is not disturbed by the co-existence of an undetermined will-in those species, for which a moral life is not designed, and which are endowed from the first with ripe organs of sense, and instincts adequate to the conditions of their existence,-the self-manifesting power of objects reaches them immediately in its true characters. Witness a pheasant the hour that it has escaped from the egg, run up with precision to a small object which may be several yards distant from it, knowing that object from the first to be suitable food; or witness a cobra-capella, just set free by breaking the egg in which it was enclosed, immediately rear itself up and offer battle to the hand that liberated it, with as much ceremony, and strike with as much precision, as if it were an old snake with effective fangs. Phenomena of this order are manifold all through nature, and cannot be denied. Here, then, we have the function of perception realized in a typical manner. Here we have the phenomena exhibited in that form which ought to be regarded as cosmical-that is, where the self-manifesting power or perceptibility of objects comes face to face, and into immediate relation with the perceptivity of living Beings, all the obstacles between being surmounted even as if they were not in the way at all.
But, unhappily for the progress of philosophy, man has been taken as the type-man of whom it has been jocularly, yet truly said, that he enters upon life as "a born idiot," and whose organs of sense and whose organism, it must be confessed, are so defective at first, that not till after more than a year can be even balance himself in the most elementary of all antagonisms, that of gravitation.
In man, therefore, as might be expected, the obstacles to the distinct vision of objects immediately on their presentation are insuperable. Nor that at the first only. That versatility and power of imagining which is implied in the possession of liberty, expose man all his life, when engaged in observing, to form misconceptions. The study of perception in man, therefore, is beset with great difficulties, and little has, indeed, been made of it as yet. Nor is science in its most advanced state equal to the inquiry. Such an undertaking, in fact, if it is to be successfully accomplished, implies both a full knowledge of the æther and of its modes of action, of the material system and its modes of action, and of the nervous system and its modes of action. But of all these things science down to the present moment is profoundly ignorant. We shall therefore merely glance at the phenomena as they present themselves to a man in the full possession of his senses.

SUBJECT AND OBJECT.


First, then given an external object and a mind possessing adequate impressibility or sensibility in the same field, synthesis immediately takes place. It is not such a synthesis, however, as issues in the fusion of both object and mind into one. On the contrary, both object and mind have in individualized existence each its own, and this, the self-assimilative and consequently self-conservative action of each tends as its first function to maintain. Moreover, these realities now standing face to face, that is, the mind and the external object, stand opposite to each other as centres of reciprocally assimilative action. They stand in a position of essentially antithetic action. And thus, according to our theory, we obtain, as the primary condition of normal intellectual action in the sphere of the finite, the distinction of SUBJECT and OBJECT, or, in the language of consciousness, the "I" or Ego, and the "not-me" or non-Ego.

POSITION AND SPACE ---- TIME AND MOTION.


But this is not all that develops itself as proper to the same state of mind. By an act of volition, while the attention continues directed as before, the external object may be discharged or forgotten, and the same direction may be thought, the object being away. And now there manifests itself as a residuum in perception, as the pure or empty complement of the object, a more articulate conception of an outward than that which the mind has from itself merely-in a word, a conception of space or place not now as a boundless infinity, but as that which is limitable and divisible and capable of form.
And similarly, as an inner residuum, as the complement of the mind's changefulness, when every change in particular is put out of the way, attention continued in this direction gives Duration, not now as the symbol of eternity, but under the articulate conceptions of past, present, and future. These intuitions, therefore, space and time, stand on a basis that is both objective and subjective. No wonder they are quite insuperable. No wonder they always present themselves when nothing else is given to engage the mind's eye, and thus to cause them to be forgotten for the time.
But the mind cannot be in possession of such ideas as that of space, considered as limitable and divisible, say the idea of position or form, and that of duration, say past, present, and future, without spontaneously compassing their synthesis. Now, of such a synthesis what is the expression? Is it not plainly the idea of here and there with transition but yet continuity between them? And what is this but the idea of motion?
FORCE -- PHYSICS.


Now to these conceptions add power, which lies in our nature more deeply seated than any of them, and we obtain that group of ideas of which Physical Science is but the orderly development. No wonder, then, that physical science in its fundamental ideas appears so certain and so clear, and affords so much mental enjoyment. It has to do with those ideas only which are most elementary, and which admit with the greatest facility at once of intuition, of analysis and of synthesis, in a word, of the full play of the mind; and to this, as has been shown, intellectual enjoyment and satisfaction always attach, be the subject what it may.
The radical evil of science in our day is a grievous misconception of the nature of force in its ground, a misconception extending, therefore, to the whole of the sphere of Reality. Force, even in its original or rather aboriginal state and form, is considered at present by the most popular advocates of science as thing all whose manifestations may be expressed in measurable terms of space and time, in other words, mathematically. Mental force is regarded merely as an ultimate development or efflorescence from certain organisms of that which is its ground is wholly bind and mechanical. Now, this is precisely an inversion of the fact.

But happily there is reason to believe that this view of things cannot last long. It has often taken possession of men's minds before. The history of thought has fully shown its utter inadequacy to solve the problems of philosophy. The essential theism of the human mind is absolutely opposed to it. Let us hope that it will soon pass away as it has done before, and that mental power will be resumed as the type, of which mechanical force is the limitation designed for certain ends, and effected, no doubt, in some manner that is simple and beautiful, though what that is we have not come yet to consider.
SENSATIONALISM.


While the object is assimilating the mind to itself, the assimilative action of that object is in a normal state of mental action soon stopped by the inner activity proceeding from the mind in an opposite direction. The EGO is constituted, and, in being constituted, claims self-possession and identity as its inalienable right. At the same time, some special form of consciousness due to the external world is awoke, into which the EGO enters as a factor, and for this in its various modes the names are--I see, I I hear, I smell, I touch, I taste, &c. And thus do we reach the phenomenon of normal sensations, corresponding to external objects. And it belongs to our philosophy, in accordance with the absolute affirmations of common sense, to hold that these sensations are produced by the objects themselves, acting immediately upon the mind, and expressing themselves, though badly, yet as well as they can, in terms of mind. This, according to our views of the nature of objects, they may do, since we ascribe to every object beyond its visible or tangible form an extensiveness to which no limits in distance can be assigned. This sphere of action, in the actual state of science, is admitted only in reference to the gravitation of objects, but we hold it in reference to other properties also, and especially their perceptibility, or self-manifesting power. The prevalent hypothesis is that even when we are directly observing an external object, and affirming, with all the confidence of which we are capable, that we see it, hear it, smell it, touch it, &c., yet we are in reality completely mistaken. The prevalent hypothesis is, that it is only some sort of an image of it that we see, such as that which is formed in the retina of a dead animal when its eye is used as a camera obscura, that image being connected on our part with its object only by practice and inference. It is certain, however, in the case of percipients which are capable of taking their place in nature as soon as they are born, that no practice or experience whatever is necessary, in order to their distinct perception of distant objects; and that not only as to their distances and forms, but as to their specific relations to the individual percipient. (See p. 87.) The evidence, also, that certain objects are sometimes perceived otherwise than by the external senses, appears to be insuperable. Common sense, which affirms in all unsophisticated minds that external objects themselves are perceived, when construed into a science of perception, as we have done, may, indeed, demand an assent to more difficult conceptions than the image-theory; for the latter has all the charm of a mechanical construction, and therefore affords to the student a play of mind both in analysis and synthesis which is always pleasing. But our view is surely worth the cost of mastering it. In fact the idea-theory so completely knocks down common sense in its own appropriate field, that field in which it believes itself to be standing most firmly upon its feet, that it is impossible to avoid the inference that if this be the way of it,-if consciousness be mendatious even here, it is of no use to think about the discovery of reality anywhere; for if what is most peremptorily given us as truth and reality, is no more than a mere shadow (if indeed so much), and that projected within the mind itself,--then truly "a possibility," or, let us say, "some kind of orderly stimulus of sensations," is all that we can ever know for certain of the external universe, as is indeed frankly admitted by consistent sensationalists.
Holding fast, then, in the meantime, by common sense, whether we suceed in developing it into a philosophy or not, let us proceed with tracing the phenomena which must arise in the course of the action and reaction of object and subject, under the ever recurring law of assimilation. This, as will have been already perceived, is the sheet-anchor of our philosophy, and to this law it must be admitted that we are very faithful, since while all other works in modern science and philosophy invoke the aid of many different laws, some rational and some empirical, we avail ourselves of one only. Yes; and by the action of one law only we undertake to explain all the phenomena which we discuss.
Epochs
THE MYTHOLOGICAL EPOCH.


Under the law of assimilation the external object assimilates the mind to itself. But to this the mind, in virtue of its own individualized power, and the self-assimilative or conservative action which this implies, puts a stop. And when there is an equilibrium, the result is the just perception of the object, with the appropriate sensations. But this equilibrium, and accurate distribution between object and subject, is reached only after much swinging to opposite sides, which, viewed in reference to the history of the human mind, are epochs. And of these we may name the first swing, the epoch of Mythology or poetry, and the last swing, that of mathematics, or (adopting its own name for itself) Positivism.
While the object is assimilating the mind to itself, the mind, in its turn, is assimilating the object to itself; and here, in the first instance, in virtue of the treasures of life that there are in the mind, feelings and views well out of it fast, and rise in the mind in quite a cloud, and then they surreptitiously fly forth, and cluster around, and cling to, pierce and house themselves, and find a home in the objects beheld-nay, possibly, in the very names merely which recall the objects.
To what extent, and whether to any extent, in reference to certain objects at least, the mind can actually assimilate these objects to itself, we shall probably never know, because the objects referred to have no eye within to observe, nor though they had an eye, have they a tongue to tell us what is happening to them. In some cases, indeed, assimilations to mind are obvious. But these so generally take place through the somatic investiture, that nothing can be here affirmed on this subject that would not be open to criticism. But what tends to happen in the observer's own mind at the time when his mental power is flowing out upon objects may be ascertained, and in fact is well known. It is well known that the mind tends to assimilate the object to itself, to animate it, to invest it with thought and feeling, and to find in it all that there is in self. The contemplation of nature, as a whole, tends to be a communion with the Great Spirit; and of individual objects in nature, a communion with spirits more or less kindred with self. Science to a mind in this state is as yet all and only a mythology. And so it is in children, and glowing hearts such as those of young mothers, even in this iron age.
And thus does our theory fully account for an epoch in the development of the human mind, which manifests itself both in history and in the now extant world n the position which our theory assigns to it.

THE POSITIVE EPOCH.


However strong the tendency of the mind at first to assimilate all nature to itself, it is found ere long that, in the main, nature is not assimilable; nay, that it rather stands in opposition to self. Thus is the EGO called upon to subject to a destructive criticism its own first views respecting the NON-EGO. It enters, in fact, upon a period of reaction against the poetic and mythic view of nature, in the embrace of which it had lived happy for the time. And during that epoch it was not more fully bent on finding the free movements of life everywhere, than it is now bent on referring every motion to straight lines, and measuring them all according to some mathematical power of the distance from their origin. It was not formerly more fully bent on finding that all was the expression of mind, than it is now bent on finding that all is mere machinery, revolving machinery indeed, but still only a revolving stereotype press, into the origin, design, or destiny, of which it is held to be vain to inquire, inasmuch as human thought, though it persistently equals itself to such inquiries, is merely printed matter thrown off by that machinery so badly composed as to be incorrigible.
Thus does the mind, in virtue of its two-fold constitution in consciousness, its synthetico-analytical rhythm, tend to swing at first, nay, from first to last, into one or other of two extremes; now merging the material world in mind, and creating a world of mythology and poetry; now merging mind in the material world, and affirming all things to be a mere display of applied mathematics. Both views are equally subjective, both are at once defective and exaggerated. Both, therefore, are to be avoided, and which the two most, we may leave the reader to determine for himself. Happily there is something within reach, the balance of both, which is better than either.
THE SCIENTIFIC EPOCH.


When the mental activity has fixed itself on an object, then there is that most important state of mental functioning which usually bears the name ATTENTION, and when existing in its most sustained and intense form, APPLICATION. Its fixedness is so far contrary to the nature of the mind, which is essentially active or changeful, that it needs to be sustained by an act of the will. But this it can be, at least after adequate practice and in those who have the aptitude, to an almost indefinite extent. Now, out of this frame of mind it is that all great discoveries have come. But whether these are of the nature of births in the mind, to which the object contemplated is merely the stimulus, or whether they are not happy views given by the object of itself, is not agreed. Application is, therefore, altogether invaluable.
It is however, equally to be considered that it is from the over forcing and misdirection of application that all partial views and most errors take their rise. This faculty, therefore, is the source at once of the greatest good and of the greatest evils.
How, then, it may be well asked, ought attention to be regulated; or rather, let us say, what is its normal state in relation to the presentation of an object with which it is co-ordinate? Now, to this the answer certainly is,-that given an object of attention, there ought in a perfectly normal state of things to be no putting forth of an effort of the will to interfere with the true spontaneity of the mind's action one way or another. The whole mind in the synthetico-analytic mode of action which the presentation of the object awakes in it, ought to be left to bestow itself upon that object without any interference of the part of the EGO. And in ordinary perception, by the use of the senses, such a state of things is usually secured. But in the sphere of reflection no discipline is more difficult, if indeed it be attainable by culture at all. And hence interminable speculation and no end of partial views. Hence, also, abundance of invested views, in which subjective is put for objective, and VICE VERSA. Hence, in a word, endless error.
But the method of reaching the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, however difficult it may be practically to compass it, is not of difficult statement. It is plainly to the effect that Synthesis(the-object-holding-capacity) shall supply new food for the perceptivity as fast as Analysis (or attention) assimilates or comes to understand what has presented itself already. For then, things will be received, understood, and retained in the mind in their true relations; and the mind, when acquiring ideas, will be kept diligent, and not be permitted to break off and speculate AD LIBITUM, as in virtue of its egotism an empty mind ever tends to do.
Supposing the normal order as described above to have been observed from first to last, then, in reference to the object in hand, mental action comes to a close in an accurate and at the same time a clear and distinct perception of that object. And on the retrospect of what has been done, it will be seen that the mind has accomplished three phases of action, or rather, indeed, has completed one, that has been cut in upon and modified by another, which occupied the middle period, and thus so far partitioned the one into three. The first is pure synthesis, in which the object strikes the mind in its totality, but at the same time all in confusion. It therefore causes in the mind embarrassment and consequent uneasiness; for the mind has lost its liberty or power of rambling among objects without gaining any such clear and distinct view of the object which has fixed it, as would allow of a play of its activity in analysis and synthesis upon that object. Urged by this uneasiness, therefore, and in that EXPECTATION of relief which uneasiness always awakes, the mind enters on its second phase. In this it does not exclude the object presenting altogether. That it has not power to do. The law of assimilation insists upon its continuing to hold the object to some extent. But it excludes it all save some single point. And in this it finds relief, especially if on that point it bestows itself until it has come to understand it; for the glare, the confusion of the original presentation, has been reduced to a point. Then the mind moves to another point, and bestows itself upon it. And thus it finds a play for its activity, and, consequently, a measure of relief in moving from point to point of the object presenting; and so on until the whole of that object has been surveyed. This accomplished, that is ANALYSIS COMPLETED, nothing remains to restrict the original synthetic holding of the object. That object, therefore, now again occupies the mind wholly as it did at first. But there is a great difference in the view which the mind now takes of the object, compared with what it took at first. The object is now no longer a thing of confusion and a cause of uneasiness to the mind. It is lighted up with intelligence, and affords a field for the full and free play of the intellect upon it. The mind as a member in the universe holds the object in synthesis, and as an individual it hold it in analysis. The mind's relations and its functions in reference to the object are fulfilled. The uneasiness, therefore, with which it regarded the object at first, has been displaced by intellectual enjoyment (for enjoyment is always either the companion or the reward of natural conditions fulfilled). Science has taken the place of ignorance, and phenomena have been referred to mind or to matter according to their true parentage.

RETENTION.

But we have already anticipated a mental phenomenon which cannot but be of the greatest value and significance. The mind having been once assimilated to a variety of objects by the presentation of these objects, is no longer precisely what it was before. It has acquired a new state, a new mode of Being. The EGO has, indeed, all along remained in possession of itself. But it has, at the same time, been put in possession of many assimilation by external objects. Nor does any reason appear why such assimilations once effected in the mind should ever after wholly vanish. On the contrary, no sooner does any individualized thing, such as one of the assimilations referred to, come into existence, but under the law of assimilation, it is invested with a VIS INERTIAE, a self-assimilative, that is, a self-conservative power.
Thus must the mind have in store two classes of ideas. They may be severally distinguished as the one CONSTITUTIONAL and the other INCIDENTAL; the former depending on a continuous presence or presentation, viz., that of God to the soul, and that of the soul to herself, and constituting reason; the latter depending on the occasional presentation of surrounding objects, and constituting the materials of experience.
Will the latter then, let us ask, be liable to re-present themselves to consciousness from time to time in a rambling and merely chaotic manner? If so, surely they will be a greater inconvenience than an advantage. But no; against such a state of things the law of assimilation amply provides.
MEMORY.


In the absence or non-observation of external objects, and during the neglect of the ideas of reason, when, in short, the mind is is a vacant state, it must at such seasons bestow its assimilative action upon itself. It must tend to assimilate its existing state to some former state; and thus it must tend to bring up into consciousness the formerly acquired ideas now in store. Nor will these ideas tend to come up spontaneously in disconnected groups, unless they have been previously disjointed by special analysis. They will obviously tend to come up, cohering in those very groups in which they originally impressed the mind and were received as unities in it. And thus when all is spontaneous, and the present is no more to the mind than the past, there will be the phenomenon of living in the past. And when the present is taken and held as the principal point of view, there will be the phenomenon of remembering and the exercise of memory.


CONSECUTION (LEIBNITZ). --- THE INDUCTIVE JUDGMENT.


The assimilation of that which is, or which is to be, to that which has been, and has been observed, and which we may designate the law of reintegration, applies universally.And under the general canon which affirms identity when no effective difference appears, it applies to the future as well as the past, and thus brings the past into the present and becomes a guide of life. In virtue of this law, it comes to pass that when the conditions in which a phenomenon has been already observed recur, and the beginnings of the phenomenon are observed again or conserved anew, the mind, remembering the past, assimilates itself to what it was before, and predicts with confidence the completion of what has commenced again, that is, the recurrence of the whole phenomenon.
Such is the true theory of the inductive judgment. It does not stand high in the intellectual scale. And, accordingly, as is well known, in uncultivated or superstitious minds, who do not distinguish between the conditions productive of a phenomenon and its accidental concomitants, the inductive judgment is the source of interminable blundering. It is a judgment of the very same order as that which leads a dog to howl when a stick is held over him, if he have been beaten with a stick on some former occasion. It is, consequently, no argument whatever for the invariable constancy of nature, much less is it a sanction for this tenet. Apart from cosmological theories, indeed, there is no sanction at all for this tenet but that which the testimonies of the past and the observations of the present supply. If a narrative attests the observation of seemingly exceptional phenomena, miracles, or what in general may be called the supernatural, the part of the man of science is, as in other cases, simply to inquire and to determine as to the accuracy of the observation. In so far as scientific principles are concerned, miracle or no miracle is an open question. The belief in a dead uniformity of phenomena from all Eternity, in a stated recurrence of the same conditions of Existence, and in the very same phenomena when the same conditions of Existence recur, which the popular science of our day either broadly insinuates or positively affirms, is perhaps the poorest expression of human conception that has ever claimed the name of philosophy.

ABSTRACTION OR SELECTIVE ATTENTION.


But the mind, though not engaged with the observation of a present object, is not under the necessity of always slavishly remembering something past. The personal activity, the analytic power, just as when engaged on a display of objects presenting themselves for the first time, may fix itself as it may please on any one idea or group of ideas in the revolving panorama of past experience now recalled, to the neglect of all the others. In this field, as in the other, it may accomplish an act of SELECTIVE ATTENTION, of which the good and the evil have been already touched upon. And this, whatever its dangers, is that to which the name of "Abstraction" has been awarded, and on which all philosophical praise is popularly bestowed.
CLASSIFICATION.


But Abstraction being wholly and solely of the nature of analysis, cannot rule long, if indeed at all, alone. As soon as the effort ceases by which analysis has been sustained, the synthetic action of the mind spontaneously supervenes, and other ideas come in upon that which Abstraction has up to that moment detained in consciousness. And of these ideas, what shall the general character be? This the law of assimilation must of course determine, for there is no other law. Now, does not the very name of that law suggest that the ideas now rising up in the mind, perhaps crowding up into consciousness, shall be similar? And such they are well known to be. And thus does our theory give the classification of objects on the ground of their similarity as necessary or unavoidable, and therefore legitimate. But if legitimate or normal mentally, then such also that the material world must respond; for the material world is both a manifestation of mind as to its origin and design, and a residuum or deposit of mind as to its substance. Objects, therefore, when classified according to the amount of their most vital resemblances, are classified according to a natural method.
GENERALIZATION.


But similars are not identicals. After a classification has been made, therefore, on the ground of an observed similarity, there opens up a field for renewed abstraction or selective attention. Differences, as well as identities, present themselves. But under the law of assimilation these differences will tend to pass out of consciousness, and those features in the objects classified which are identical will tend to be kept in mind. And this is that important process in the normal spontaneity of the intellect which bears the name of Generalization. It is deemed to be all-important. And so it is for sound philosophy; but not for the philosophy of those who are loudest in its praise. For them generalization is merely vidifaction, merely "thought," after having accomplished an outward-bound voyage for the discovery of the universe, returning to view that universe at last only in those few lights which it can itself reflect. Generalization is valid for discovery only in so far as mind is the type of all, only in so far as the make of the mind and the make of the universe is the same. Now, this is a point on which our most popular philosophy has but very little to say. Possibly, according to that philosophy, the products of generalization may be nothing but the imposition of laws upon Nature as her laws, which are merely phenomena of human consciousness. And in the face of such a possibility one would have certainly have need to be solicitous about all philosophy, whether it had not better be let alone. But, happily for us, there is no occasion for solicitude. For us, all Nature is but the manifestation of mind; and that mind is One, and such an One, as is above even the possibility of awarding existence to any thing which, when in normal action, shall belie any other thing.
SYLLOGISM.


It is thought by many that in generalization the logical functioning of the mind comes to a close, and that after the utmost generalization has been accomplished, it can only retrace its steps and thus amuse itself or explain to itself its own meaning. And this view is no doubt countenanced by the common syllogism, whether we adopt the form of Kanada or of Aristotle, the former being the direct and natural march, the latter the studied retrace of thought. Perception, as supplying contents for the syllogism, is of course essential to both; but it is implied and not expressed in either. Then in the order of the intellectual spontaneity come Abstraction or selective attention, Classification and Generalization, and that in the order now named. And thus Kanada--"This mountain is on fire (selective attention); for it smokes (classification); whatever smokes is on fire" (generalization). And thus Aristotle--"All men are mortal (Kanada, whatever is man is mortal), (generalization); Socrates is a man (classification); Socrates is mortal" (selective attention).
IDEALS AND ART.


But this is a very superficial view of the intellectual functioning of the mind. It recognizes as the only laws of suggestion or association (or "cohesion!) of ideas, first, redintegration," that is, the reappearance of ideas as assimilated to former experience, or as products of INCIDENTAL ASSIMILATION, learnedly set down as "coincidence or proximity in time and space;" and secondly, similarity in the ideas themselves, that is, ESSENTIAL ASSIMILATION. But there are many other occasions of suggestion besides these. Nay, it is not possible to enumerate all the occasions of suggestion. And to attempt to reduce them to law, which is the popular expression for subjecting them to the process of generalization, is merely to attempt to include a higher order of phenomena in a lower, and to lose far more than is gained. In fact "something" suggests "nothing." and nothing may suggest anything. The soul, as a member in the cosmos, tends spontaneously to effloresce with thought. Though not in its own knowledge, yet, in point of fact, mind is "a mirror of the universe from its own point of view," and offer it gold, no man can tell what change you will get till you see it on the counter. Only, in that change you are sure to find the coin which is proper to the soul's own treasury; you are sure to find certain abiding impressions, certain indwelling ideas, which tend to take a place in every conception and in every train of thought wherever there is an opening for them. Such are the postulates of Being, Action, Unity, Identity, &c. And these the soul gives forth as she has got and holds them, that is, not as attributes confined to the limited Being which she has now discovered herself to be, but as general intuitions manifesting themselves in Mind when existing and acting not as this or that individual, but as a Perceptivity merely, of which, if she look for the origin and the fountain, she looks, not to herself, but to God, the author of all. Moreover, these the ideas of reason, in virtue of her own intrinsic changefulness the soul is for ever differentiating within herself, and thus developing into endless variety. Meanwhile, when engaged upon the outward world, she is also called upon to observe an endless variety. Now this train of thought, whether awoke from within or from without, may be either normal or merely incidental. But in the depths of reason there must ever tend to be an echo or an image of it, which is always normal.
And hence, on the occasion of any construction by the imagination on the observation of any phenomenon, form, or action, within or without, the soul underlays it with its Ideal. More shortly, every adventitious object and action tends to suggest its Ideal. If it be asked what we mean by Ideal? The answer is that the ideal of a phenomenon, a movement, a form, an action, is that which ought to be in the circumstances as the soul conceives these circumstances. And if it be asked, what we mean by that which ought to be? the answer is that we mean the fulfillment of the cosmical laws, or in the moral sphere the maintenance of cosmical order in the circumstances conceived. Ideals prove to be symmetries and harmonies, or more generally such movements, forms, and actions as the law of assimilation dictates, and as are familiarly known by the qualities of Beauty and Goodness. As to the principles of Beauty in sensible objects, I have elsewhere shown* that they are precisely those symmetrical areas and continuously curved lines or contours, which the cosmical laws tend to develop in material nature, and that the ideals of the Beautiful in the mind are the corresponding mathematic.
But the ideals of Him who is the fountain of goodness. Taken together, the ideals of the Beautiful and the Good, the soul has them, not as an individual insulated in space, but as a member in the creation, in intimate relationship with the Creator. And in having them she cannot but be joyful, either when she is herself able to realize them outwardly, or when she sees them realized; for in that case her activity, whether in relation with the senses or the will, must flow spontaneously and freely; and this we have found to be the sure condition of enjoyment in every case.
In the wagging of the world, however, the Actual and the Ideal do not always coincide. And in that case, in consequence of the greater force and obtrusiveness of the Actual, there is, of course, mental arrest and uneasiness. The Actual is declared to be ugly or depraved. It, indeed, the soul, notwithstanding her fusion into the mould of the body, were capable of taking a cosmical view of objects, all would be found to be beautiful to which the cosmical laws award existence. But such a view would not be suitable for us during the period of our somatic existence. In order to keep up the organization during the long period required for the development of the soul, and for training her to obedience to cosmical law, Reason requires to be seconded by appetite, desire, and aversion. Now this it scarcely could be, if all our environments appeared to us beautiful and agreeable, as they do to the cosmically enlightened.
And thus there exists a field for art. Our incapacity to embrace Nature as a whole, and to view each object in all its reciprocities, disqualifies us for enjoying many objects that come in our way, Hence a demand to surround ourselves with certain objects only, namely, such as may enjoy fully. Now this demand our constructive imagination enables us to supply; and the result is Art. Like Nature herself, Art may be developed either as means or as end, thus giving Useful art on the one hand, and Fine art on the other. But it is to the latter that the name and our remarks here specially apply. And what follows from our theory is this, that the secret of a composition in the fine arts which is to be successful as such, is this, that is shall be true to normal Nature so far as it goes, but at the same time more isolated, more abstract, embody fewer ideas, or exist in fewer relations than the corresponding objects in Nature usually do. Thus is the beholder able to assimilate his mind to it more completely, that is, to understand it more easily, and to enjoy it more fully. It is quite a mistake to suppose that a human Artist can produce anything whatever, that is, finer than the corresponding production of Nature, when the latter is viewed in all its greatness and in all its reciprocities, The composition of the Artist may possibly be finer when considered as its own universe, finer than any similar objects when picked out of Nature and grouped together by art,-but not finer than these same object when viewed as they are in Nature, that is, each a source and a recipient of manifold forms, sympathies, reciprocities, and radiations.

DOGMATISM, SCEPTICISM, AND MENTAL IMBECILITY.


There is yet another depth in the law of suggestion, and its importance cannot be over-estimated; for it appears to be the institution by which the personal power, freedom, or liberty of the mind shall have a vote in the purely intellectual sphere. I allude to that mental phenomenon, in virtue of which an idea tends to be followed, or, as is commonly said, to suggest its opposite. It takes its rise in that mental rhythm on which consciousness also depends, and which consists first in a phase of synthesis, and, immediately after, in a phase of analysis. These modes of mental action are the counterparts of each other; and hence they tend to give opposite products. But the products of synthesis are not modifiable within the mind. They are determined by the object. They express the mind when in direct and positive relation with an object, either real or ideal. They are therefore affirmative, universally affirmative. Hence it remains for analysis in its CONTRE COUP to affect the negative.
And in our submitting to this rhythm, does not the history of philosophy, and indeed the history of ordinary thinking appear? When synthesis becomes the habit of the mind, regardless of genuine data, there results Dogmatism. When analysis becomes the habit, without a legitimate field, there results Scepticism. When each phase acts separately, and after intervals, instead of simultaneously, there is intellectual Imbecility. Only when both in good balance co-operate powerfully and fast, is there sound judgment or good sense. Dogmatism and scepticism are both evils; but if liberty could not be secured in the intellectual sphere except on the condition of this synthetico-analytical rhythm, which thus occasionally produces them, these evils are not too great a price to pay for so great a boom.
THE PURE DIALECTIC.


Moreover, the normal products of this rhythm are far greater and far better than its abortions are bad. To it, indeed, we owe our ready suggestion, not only of opposites, but of correlatives generally, and indeed all our orderly knowledge. Take an instance, the simplest possible. I conceive or posit "unity," that is, I exist in synthesis with that idea-that is , my mental activity finds itself attending to or kept in arrest by unity as an object. But being essentially an activity, and claiming its own action as its own right, my mind naturally, that is, I naturally tend to emancipate myself from that arrest, and so to break off from the object which has been holding me in arrest. I tend to break off from the idea of unity. But if I do, and obey the law of assimilation in my act, I must break off only in the same field of thought. The idea in which I break off must somehow contain the idea of unity. Hence I say to myself "not unity, yet something in the same field as unity;" \and this done, analysis has completed its phase. And now the phase of synthesis supervenes, and I obtain as a synthetic datum, "one + not one," not, however, as two, but as one, for I hold them in synthesis. But what is one + not one when held as one? Plainly it is a whole or "totality." But now analysis may cut in, which, as the expression of the mental activity, it ever tends to do; and thus looking with the analytic eye upon a totality or whole, and seeing it to consist of one + not one, ---that is, one and other number or numbers not stated,--I obtain the idea of "plurality." And here the development comes to a close, for the nest step is only a return upon the idea of totality. Thus a sustained, spontaneous or constitutional, synthetic habit when acting, is cut in upon by the individual, the personal, the volitional activity, and they give together (in this case) the arithmetical elements--unity, plurality, totality.
Subjected to the same dialectic, the idea of Force, gives the series, -- Cause, -- Effect, -- Energy.
The idea of Being gives -- Being, -- Acting, -- Power; and so on.
But such developments do not take place with a rapidity which is altogether fatal to liberty. During the change of phase from synthesis to analysis, or back again, like the moment of rest in the swinging pendulum or undulating particle of elastic medium, a moment of contemplation normally awakes, which may be prolonged at will. The mental activity can command for itself more or less completely a state of repose. If the repose were complete, while yet the mind's eye remained open, there would be no analysis, no abstraction, no exclusion. The soul acting no longer then as an EGO, but simply as a perceptivity or a purely intuitional Being, might mirror a given Reality as it really is, and attain to views of things as they are. There would be nothing in that case to impair its vision of the Infinite and the Absolute.
Reasoning.


The gift of self-directive power or liberty if, on the one hand, it opens a wide door for error, invested man, on the other hand, with the power of suspending action of his mind for a time, that is, his judgment, in reference to much which in seeming only is belief-worthy. Liberty cannot intrude, indeed, either into the sphere of Reason,-that is, the sphere of constitutional intuition,-nor into that of unequivocal perception, nor of trust-worthy recollection. Nor can it interfere with the judgment of identity, that is with the affirmation of one thing of another when no difference between them appears. But it can interfere in a multitude of cases notwithstanding. And the result of this interference is nothing less important than the genesis of that mode of intellectual action which, when viewed without reference to any special end, is named thinking, and when viewed in reference to a proposed end, is named reasoning. And thus we see what are the conditions which render reasoning possible, and wherein it consists. It is rendered possible by the possession of such individualized mental power or liberty as can put an arrest for a time upon the synthetic habit of the mind (which always tends to accomplish its act spontaneously, and to affirm immediately), and which can thus for a time hold up to the view of the mind an object or thought without any judgment being passed upon it. And it consists in entertaining during this interval of suspended judgment without partiality the various objects, real or ideal, which present themselves according to their various relations to the thesis, and in endeavouring to carry out in reference to them the laws of the intellect. Reasoning, therefore, consists in stopping precipitate conclusions, in listening both outwardly and inwardly, in comparing and in selecting, with a view to an ultimate synthesis of judgment. It is therefore happily expressed in its integrity by the term deliberating.
Reasoning is the whole of our intellectual nature in exercise; and to accomplish it fully, and bring it to a close correctly, is the greatest of all intellectual achievements. But it implies many risks. And even where the data are must rich and ample, there are two risks of a most serious nature. They arise from the use that is made of the personal power or liberty during the process.
First, if liberty is permitted to interfere too freely or too long, so that synthesis is not allowed to strike, that is, judgment to take place, when it ought, then a special habit is formed; for the judgment, like all transformable powers, becomes weak through want of use. If, on the contrary, we do not invoke the aid of our liberty at all, and judge immediately and without reflection, it is only the favoured of Heaven who keep right. The point of true intellectuality is the discreet use of both-the secret of avoiding precipitate judgments, on the one hand, and of suspending the judgment too long on the other.
But come what may, we must do our best. Even the savage cannot get on without reasoning; and in a highly civilized state of society reasoning is constantly needed as the guide of daily life; for, of civilized society it too often looks as if the very secret were to pass off a seeming for a reality, and to build upon the gullibility of the public. Thus the lower animals, which, with all their Heaven-born instincts, are devoid of liberty, and, consequently, cannot deliberate, make sad fools of themselves in society, or when invited by man to accommodate themselves to his ways. A salmon, after having succeeded, by waiting and working with nature, in accomplishing a voyage of a good hundred miles, perhaps, up the river to a suitable spawning bed, when hailed by the angler, leaps at a steel hook dressed with a little tinsel, and grasps it, mistaking it for a fly, and is caught and killed. A hen that can rear a family of a dozen simultaneous descendants in a way which any mother of twins merely may envy, when the brooding disposition returns upon her, will step with infinite complacency into a nest containing a few balls of chalk, mistaking them for her own eggs, and will settle her feathers over them, and sit upon them week after week till she is nearly dead. When at liberty in a room, a monkey, which in appearance is a perfect sage, while stealing up to an object suspended from the side of a lady engaged in knitting, will show all the caution and cunning of the detective police, and having at last laid hold of the ball of worsted, it will gallop off in triumph as if it had now got possession of a great thing - having mistaken a ball of worsted for a fruit. The lower animals fall into such mistakes, not because their senses are not so acute as ours, not because their senses cannot mark differences, but because they cannot take possession of their own thought and suspend their judgment, even for a moment, because they cannot think, cannot reason, because, in a word, they have no individualized power of their own, no liberty.

IMAGINING.


When the object proposed, then as the aim of intellectual action, is either the development of a truth representative of reality, or the elimination of an error, we have a process of reasoning. Nor is it improperly so called; for the principles which are regulative of the process are the principles of reason, that is, reason itself. But the object proposed by the mind need not necessarily be the establishment of a truth. It may possibly be the construction of a world of the mind's own, for the entertainment of self or of kindred minds. The mental action is then named Imagining; and it is usually regarded as a distinct faculty, named The Imagination. But the powers of mind engaged, nay, the process itself, is the same as in reasoning, only the train of thought in imagining is not guarded, or selected, on the same principle as it is in reasoning. In imagining, the mind leaves itself free to dwell upon all that it suggests in connection with the theme, and from among all these suggestions to choose those which will best give the construction which it is intending. In imagining, consequently, the mind throws itself loose from the law of redintegration; for if it obey that law, there would result a train of recollections or of memory only. It throws itself loose, also, from the process of exploring the contents of general statements, as also from that of striking and transforming identicals, and substituting and balancing equivalents; for in either of these cases there would result a process of reasoning. In a word, in imagining, the soul places herself in the full exercise of her liberty on the throne of thought, and allows herself when seated there to dictate the development. When engaged in imagining, therefore, the mind is in its most exalted exercise, that exercise in which the law of assimilation has fullest play; for when thus engaged the creature is not merely acting the part of a creature, not merely receiving on the bosom of the mind the impress of God and of nature, and being assimilated and instructed in the knowledge of realities divine and human. When imagining the creature is assimilating himself to the Creator, as such. He is venturing on the production of a cosmos of his own, or of some object of objects in such a cosmos. And sometimes in gifted minds, though very rarely, the creation resulting, though not real, have all the features of reality-yes, all the features of the highest order of reality of their own kinds-except, of course, extension and substance in dynamical position in space. Such, for instance, are many of the creation in the sphere of human nature, which have been constructed by the genius of Shakespeare.

DISCOVERING

But why ought not the mind, when well instructed in the Being and attributes of God, Nature, and man, and when imagining or developing thought harmoniously with its acquired knowledge and the laws of intelligence, reach the real creation, or real objects in it, as its own creation, if the real objects be what it is aiming at? Plainly in this there is nothing impossible or oven hopeless. Nay, this is the only method of discovering which has been as yet successful. A fine discovery is only an enlightened imagination verified by the responsiveness to it of external nature. And, possibly, between the enlightened imagination and the verification there may be an interval of long ages. Nature often shows herself to the individual mind in flashes, which to that favoured mind do not stand in need of verification, and which to mind in general cannot be verified perhaps for long ages thereafter. And such flashes, to a wonderful extent, were the privilege of the philosophers of India, and of the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, in ancient times. Our calling and our capacities are chiefly to verification. But when our heads are right with those who have gone before us, this is no drudgery; for God is as good, and nature is as beautiful as ever.

SUMMARY


Such are the outlines of a pure Psychology or Pneumatology.
1. An individualized Being, consisting of such as amount of substance or potentiality as enables it to fulfill the cosmical law of Assimilation fully; that is, both(a) as to the Being and Attributes, and also (b) as to the Power of the Creator, is a Spirit; and to the extent that it does so assimilate itself, it is a good spirit.
2. From the impress of the Creator in His Being and attributes upon a spirit, and its assimilation to Him is these respects, there result in the consciousness of that spirit Religious Obligation and Reason .
3. From the impress of the World in its objects and economy upon a spirit, and the spirit's assimilation to the world in these respects, there result, External Perception, and Moral Obligation, with the incidental formation and subsequent retention of manifold Assimilations or Ideas.
4. From the impress of a spirit in former states (variously revived) upon itself as it exists in its present state, and its assimilation to these former states, there results Recollection, both (a) simply retrospective and (b) anticipative, that is, both Memory and Consecution (the inductive judgment). And thus is the first epoch of mental existence constituted. A panorama is given, in which a purely instinctive, spontaneous, and happy life may be led.
But a spirit exists under the abiding impress not only of the Being and attributes, but of the Might or power of God. It is accordingly under the law of Assimilation, put in possession of power or ability to act from within self as a fountain of action.
5. In the panorama therefore which is giving, it is free to ramble or to fix itself on what objects it pleases. It is endowed with the faculty of Self-directed Attention. But meanwhile existing, as it ever does, under the law of assimilation, it cannot refrain from marking similarities and no-similarities, that is, differences. And if it act normally under the law of assimilation, it must bestow a Selective Attention upon similarities, pursuing them till all differences are eliminated. In other words, it must, Abstract, Classify, and Generalize.
6. But in merely rambling, attending, or selecting among data supplied from without, the power of a spirit is not exhausted. When existing in its normal relations, it is suggestive or productive of ideas which may not be given in the panorama placed before it or obstruded upon it. From its own depths it can supply itself with their Ideals..
7. Moreover, the structure of consciousness (see Chap. iii.) puts it in possession of a pure Dialectic, supplying correlatives of all kinds, whereby the primal panorama and the mind's store of ideas may be immensely varied and indefinitely increased.
8. Hence a field in which error cannot but mingle largely with truth. Thought and life can no longer proceed spontaneously and instinctively. Wrong may be chosen instead of Right, and Evil may come to be.
9. But if the law of assimilation be honored from first to last, the discovery of truth and right conduct are for ever secure. The life of the spirit meanwhile has risen from the merely instinctive to that which is Rational and Moral.


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