conglomerated, sometimes thrown together in a heap,often rushing onward and spreading out like the Rhine, until they lose themselves in a morass,—and now and then, after having disappeared, rising up again, as was fabled of the Alpheus, in a distant region, which they reach through an unseen channel; the peaks, which first meet our eyes are mostly so barren, while the fertilizing waters flow secretly through the valleys; the statements of events are so perpetually at variance, and not seldom contradictory; the actors on the ever-shifting stage are so numerous and promiscuous; so many indistinguishable passions, so many tangled opinions, so many mazy prejudices are ever at work, rolling and tossing to and fro in a sleepless conflict, in which every man's hand and heart seem to be against his neighbour, and often against himself; it is so impossible to discern and separate the effects brought about by man's will and energy, from those which are the result of outward causes, of circumstances, of conjunctures, of all the mysterious agencies summed up under the name of chance; and it requires so much faith, as well as wisdom, to trace anything like a pervading overruling law through the chaos of human affairs, and to perceive how the banner which God has set up, is still borne pauselessly onward, even while the multitudinous host seems to be struggling waywardly, busied in petty bickerings and personal squabbles; that a perfect consummate history of the world may not unreasonably be deemed the loftiest achievement that the mind of man can contemplate."

In the present section, viewed in connection with preceding ones, it has been our endeavour, as far as limited

f

knowledge of the economy of nature and providence would permit, to show that those perfect and inexhaustible analogies, harmonies, or correspondencies, everywhere existing between the moral and the physical world, while demonstrating unity of cause, as science daily obtains deeper and clearer insight, all more and more tend to establish that there is also a unity of method in the Divine government of the universe.

From the fragment of a single bone, Cuvier or Owen could mentally construct the whole animal, accurately describe its habits, and infer with certainty its relation to all other organisms. This they could do, building on sure data, even although it were a species of animal which no man had ever previously seen or heard of— some unimagined monster of pre-Adamic epochs-such restorations being frequently confirmed by subsequent discoveries of the entire skeleton, footprints, and other fossil remains.

In the same way there are links continuously connecting the smallest atom of "chaos wild" with man's loftiest thought. Man, again, created at first in His image, through Christ, stands closely related to God; and the angelic presences, "are they not all ministering spirits?"

We have seen that Milton, while he represents the archangel Raphael as delineating "what surmounts the reach of human sense,"

"By likening spiritual to corporeal forms

As may express them best,"

shrewdly gives the reason for doing so, when, in the form of a surmise, he goes on to suggest,

"Though, what if Earth

Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein
Each to other like, more than on Earth is thought?"

Mrs. Browning, in Aurora Leigh, also expresses her fine sense of this great "linkèd harmony," and the pitiful case of those who, blind, deaf, and debased, perceive none of it all, in their eager pursuit after the sordid and material. She writes:

"No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,

But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch but implies the cherubim:
And,-glancing on my own thin, veinèd wrist,-
In such a little tremour of the blood

The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware

More and more, from the first similitude." 1

When treating of nature as primarily furnishing a medium for language, we endeavoured to show that these links in a great measure constituted that mutual fitness for illustration which has ever been intuitively felt, and which can at the same time be shown to be in strict accordance with the highest deductions of reason.

Hence Zoroaster defined poetry as "apparent pictures of unapparent natures;" and Lord Bacon says in the "Advancement of Learning," that it submits "the shows of things to the desires of the mind."

Pascal observes, 2 "There is a model of agreeableness and beauty, which consists in a certain relation between our own nature, such as it is, whether weak or strong, and the thing with which we are delighted."

In reference to the order and harmony of all outward phenomena, Schiller has said,

"Nature in unfading youth and beauty

Obeys one everlasting rule of duty;"

and of the moral world John Smith, an old divine,1 writing of The Excellence of True Religion, says that it indeed, is "no art, but an inward nature that contains all the laws and measures of its motion within itself. A good man finds not his religion without him, but as a living principle within him."

"The knowledge of man," says Lord Bacon, "is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation." 2

That deep sympathetic harmony which at once pervades outward nature and the mind of man, that perfect mutual adaptation, that oneness of method in all her ways, is too frequently approached from only one side. Being thus observed in a partial and imperfect manner, very fallacious conclusions are not at all to be wondered at. Erroneous systems sometimes cohere, and are received partly for the amount of truth they contain, -truth which in all likelihood has elsewhere to a large extent been overlooked, or has not obtained its due place and importance. Hence one-sided distinctions, more or less corresponding to the phases of realism and idealism, have been everywhere prevalent. One class, for example, accepts revelation, and reverently studies it to the neglect of the volume of creation. Although such persons do not ignore, yet they undervalue that which manifestly

1 He died in 1652. 2 "Advancement of Learning," Bk. 11.

emanates from the same hand, and is serviceable, nay specially and perhaps chiefly intended for the elucidation of those high subjects of which the other treats.

Another class, perceiving the order and harmony of creation, altogether sets aside the light of revelation; and instead of tracing the emanation upwards, assigning the marvellous mechanism of the universe to the One great presiding Mind and Source of all things, would entirely exclude the idea of a personal God, thus blindly and irrationally endeavouring to shut out the Creator from his works. Such is the dismal doctrine of materialists or pantheists.

Again, amongst those influenced by the truths of Evangelical or Bible Religion,1 one class, we have seen, resting on the very threshold of the outward, maintains that all beauty resides in the object; while another class affirms that beauty depends entirely on mental association. Outward and inward manifestations, furnishing mutual analogies, parallelisms, and illustrations, once admitted as being both parts of one great whole,-not separate systems, although, at first sight, they may seem antagonistic to each other, the difficulty at once vanishes, both views are reconciled, and perfect harmony is restored.

Every individual, who thinks, must have frequently observed the elements of this duality existing in his own mind, preponderance being given, now to the outward,

1 "What evangelic religion is, is told in two words-Faith and Charity, or Belief and Practice."-Milton.

"The quarrel that the world has with evangelic men and doctrines, they would have with a host of angels in the human form; for it is the quarrel of owls with sunshine, of ignorance with Divine illumination."-Cowper.