A CHAPTER ON IGNORANCE.

BY ONE JUST OPENING HIS EYES.

'Every sight

And sound from the vast earth and ambient air,
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.'

SHELLEY.

TO ONE accustomed to look at Nature with an observant eye, the indifference to her works manifested by most individuals seems at first view irreconcilable with that innate inquisitiveness which characterizes mankind. While his own ear is thrilled with soft melodies — while his imagination catches the living echoes of that anthem which the morning stars hymned at creation's birth- and while his soul expands as it expatiates amid the bright and varied scenes of this magnificent world his brother's insensibility is to him a mystery. Every fibre in his own bosom is thrilling with delight, as he looks abroad over the fair earth; joyous and stirring perceptions come thronging upon his mind; new and beautiful analogies are developing themselves to his fancy; but why is his brother unmoved? Is the power of sensation palsied? or are the heart-springs of gladness sealed up within him? No; but the spell of ignorance is upon him: he has never been initiated in the wonders of creation.

The effects of this spell stand out in bolder relief among the great mass of the indigent and uneducated. The wants attendant on their humble condition must necessarily engross their primary attention, and consequently little leisure is left them for the acquisition of such knowledge as does not immediately tend to the removal of those wants. If Nature is bountiful, they are satisfied with her gifts, without pausing to investigate the wonderful economy by which they are furnished. They are ignorant, indeed, of any such economy. The forms that spring up around them, present nothing particularly curious or interesting to their view. They regard them as mere simple objects, not being aware that the most delicate mechanism, and the most complex combination of elements obtain throughout their minutest parts. The novelty of strange and anomalous structures which occasionally interrupt the falsely deemed monotony of natural objects, or the plumage and note of an unknown bird, may for a moment arrest their attention, and excite their admiration; but far less powerfully in the main, than the feats of the harlequin, or the tricks of the magician. Here childish curiosity finds its richest banquet. It discovers a world of wonders in the merest trifles of human ingenuity, gazing with dilated eye on the marvels of Potter, while it would fall asleep amid the sublimest philosophies of Silliman.

With this taste, and under this obscuration of intellect, the rustic goes forth amidst the scenes of nature, in a measure unconscious of the living beauty that emanates from every object around him. The decorations of earth and sky are to him comparatively charmless, while he plods on, treading down the flowers, prostrating the forests, drowning with some uncouth strain the music of woods and waters, and sending his glance abroad over the visible glories of creation with listless apathy. But should philosophy remove the mist that is upon his vision, and en

lighten him in the wonders of Nature's operations, would he then remain as indifferent as before? As well might we suppose the blind man would continue insensible to the splendor of the rainbow, and the loveliness of material forms, were his eyes divested of their cataracts. Explain to the school-boy the inimitable conformation of the bird or the butterfly that flutters in his hand-the nice adaptation of the members of that tiny frame to symmetry, elegance of motion, and sustentation of life, and he will loosen his careless hold, and gaze on his little prisoner with an admiration he never before experienced. At the same time there will be a kind of awe mingled with his delight, when he discovers that he has been rudely handling the delicate creation of a beneficent architect a creation abounding with beauty and ingenuity—the visible demonstration of an omniscient intelligence. Teach the untutored peasant, also, the phenomena of the vegetable kingdom - unfold to his comprehension its absorbents and exhalents, its resources for the continuation of the species, and the chemical processes which give to the autumnal forests their gorgeous colorings, and you open a new world to his astonished and delighted mind.

Occasionally one of this unfortunate class breaks from the thraldrom of indigence, and dashing away the shackles and the scales that bound and blinded him, starts forth like the eagle to gaze with exulting eye on the brightest irradiations of created things. Poverty cannot re-fetter him, nor necessity subdue. The thirst after the hidden fountains of knowledge is in his soul—the fascination of an intelligent curiosity incites him forward, and who shall stay him in his career?—who hold down the curtain of mystery between his searching vision, and the farstretching and glorious prospects to which he aspires? He feels that the links in the chain of existences which connects him with the brute are multiplied as the dominions of mind are extended, and the reach of thought approximates the central and all-perfect intellect of the universe. As revelation after revelation is unfolded to his mind, the high aspirations for a still nobler and more unclouded sphere of being are changed to an exalted assurance, which becomes, as it were, the life of his existence a well-spring of hope and solace, forever gushing up fresh and full in his quiet bosom. If indigence require him to toil for sustenance, he goes cheerfully to his task, for his labors are among the objects of his admiration. On the mountains or in the valleys he is neither lonely nor alone. The melody of birds and branches is in his ear, while his eye is filled with the fair presentations of ever-varying landscapes. As he plies the axe or the sickle, fancy is busied with her enchantments, and Imagination, as she passes her fairy creations before his mind, divests labor of half its weariness. To him all visible forms present the aspect of life and thought, and in their communion, he

'Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.'

In the glens of the forests he holds companionship with Nature, and in the hush of their awful solitudes he hears her deep voice, and bears himself reverently as within the sphere of some august presence. Every season and every clime have charms for him. The alternations of light and darkness - summer and winter all are tempest and calm teeming with interest. He becomes, as it were, the adopted of Nature,

and is admitted to her most intimate familiarity. His mind seizes upon her truths as by the power of intuition, and penetrates the mysteries of her operations with the perspicacity of a higher intelligence. His countenance exhibits no trace of that indifference to her charms which characterizes the vacant mien of the multitude; but its every lineament is instinct with an animated and joyous expression. Such were Shakspeare and Burns, Franklin and Godman - men of humble birth, who, comparatively unacquainted with classic lore, and the accumulated treasures of philosophy, scanned nature with an accuracy of perception, depth of comprehension, and ardency of devotion, unsurpassed by that of the most favored votaries of science. She seems to have presented herself before them in her unrobed loveliness, and they needed not the teachings of the schools to portray to the life the graces and the glories of their divinity. They were guided by a greater than all human masters—the power of an inborn and sleepless susceptibility. Unfortunately for the world, such paragons are rare. The generality of mankind, including many of the affluent and the learned, pass on through life encircled by beautiful creations, and yet ignorant of their beauties, and unconscious of those purifying and ennobling pleasures which spring from a knowledge of the wonders which nature has lavished around them.

As equally promotive of this marvellous disregard to the beauties of nature, we may add familiarity-meaning thereby a long continued yet superficial acquaintance with external objects. In the pride of human intellect, we survey the forms of the landscape with which we have been conversant from our childhood, and conceive that we are acquainted with all their beauties, final causes, modes of existence, and combination of elements; and regard them as incapable of affording us any farther gratification, aside from the associations connected with them. The trees we planted in our boyhood have grown up with us - we saw them in the shoot - we marked their development -- we witnessed their changes from season to season, and, as it were, mated with them from year to year and is it now possible for us to derive from them any new ideas, after so long an intimacy? We know their species and varieties, their time of flowering and casting the leaf, and how can they interest us farther? But let us pause a moment. Have we remarked their diversity of form and texture their free yet chaste proportions their invariable adherence to the line of beauty in all their wild exuberant unfoldings-their elegance of motion when swayed by the breeze, or tossed by the tempest? Have we mastered all the secrets of their living laboratories, by which, in the same forest and from the same soil, the fir has secreted its healthful balsam, the laurel its active poison, and the maple its honied sap? Have we discovered the looms which have woven for the white birch its perfumed and velvet mantle, and for the oak its rude and shaggy doublet? If not, here then are subjects for reflection and research, and here the opportunities for seeking the gratifications which accompany them, when truth and nature are the objects.

The fact is, the human mind, ever active and excursive, cannot with an easy grace endure close and continued application. It is too proud, too jealous of its liberty, to be severely tasked, even by its keen and grasping ambition for knowledge. Novelty may for awhile hold it to

one object, but the gloss is evanescent -the delicate frost-work disappears; and curiosity, soon satisfied if not sated, breaks away in search of other wonders, and other investigations. Thus are we led on by an insatiable thirst for novelty, to the remotest objects, deeming that those which are near and of every-day perception, contain nothing unknown or interesting. This presumption is both unwise and unwarranted; however intimate has been our acquaintance with even the least intricate configurations of matter, we may still be assured that there is some latent beauty of structure or design, of which we may be entirely ignorant. What then must be our knowledge of those more complex systems as for instance our own bodies if so imperfect with regard to the simplest objects? Look at that fair hand, glancing like a creation of light amidst the keys of the piano. You see nothing strange to admire; nothing but what you have beheld a thousand times before, and therefore you view it with a listless attention. Perhaps the ear is pleased with the harmony which its fairy touch awakens, but the eye is not fascinated with the sight. Yet is there more of mysterious beauty-more of the cunning (I speak reverently) of an inscrutable intelligence in the mechanism of that little member, than perchance is dreamed of in an angel's philosophy.' Suppose for a moment it should become transparent as ice-that we were permitted to trace the purple current through its innumerable canals, all pellucid as crystal, and grasp the subtleties of the vital principle in its electric movements amidst the nerves suppose, indeed, that all the wonders of its organization were unveiled to our comprehension, how then would appear our presumptive knowledge of that familiar object? With what plea could we palliate our manifest ignorance? Within the superficies of a few square inches which enclose that delicate hand, what unthought of and amazing wonders present themselves to our delighted gaze! As our eye pierces the glossy integuments which enfold the various parts, we now discover that its polished whiteness and sylph-like grace of motion are but fractions of its sum of beauties, when its nice adjustments, its dexterous compactions, its regular and solemn pulse-strokes, its devious windings of vessels, its marvellous attenuations of nerves, its elegant curvature of muscles, and free mobility of every point, are taken into account.

We apprehend that, by the carelessness induced by familiarity, we are thus lulled into inattention and indifference to nearly all other outward objects. We are too prone to soothe our ambition for knowledge with the mastery of exterior appearances, without grasping after prouder triumphs. But this was not the philosophy of Bacon. He taught that curiosity should not remain satisfied with the straws and bubbles afloat on the surface of the great ocean of truth, but should plunge deeper and still deeper into its hidden recesses, for the imperishable pearls that lie buried there. He taught that the mind's eye was not to be satisfied with the mere 'show' of things, but rather to search after the substantial and abiding realities. And despite its love of ease, its pride of wisdom, and its instability of purpose, how richly has the world profited by his instruction and example! How rapid have been the advances of science, how magnificent her trophies, since the rise of the inductive philosophy! The ancients exulted in view of their anatomical acquirements, and discoursed sagely of the essence and phe

nomena of life; but the researches of Hervey, Hunter, Bichat, and other kindred spirits, have demonstrated that the superstructure of their knowledge was based on ignorance hypotheses and unwarranted theories, feebly supported by a few isolated on the frail foundation of idle and unimportant facts. The ancients talked knowingly of astronomy, and from their high watch-towers held nightly observation of the planets, and gave names to the constellations; but it remained for Newton to explode the false teachings of the astrologer; to develope in light and beauty the mystery of sphere-motion, and emblazon his own name forever, as with the imperishable stars, on the broad tablet of the whole heavens. Scarce a century ago, the alchemist spoke familiarly of the elements, as if he had mastered every fact in relation to their qualities and modifications; but modern chemistry, like another Columbus, has discovered new worlds beyond the Ultima Thule of ancient research. Within a few years, by the light of this science alone, man has literally 'found out inventions' that have made

'Air, flood, and fire,

The vassals of his will.'

With Montgolfier he sweeps forth to disport himself in the high places of the atmosphere-with Franklin he gives laws to the lightnings of heaven-with Davy he clothes himself with power from the trodden minerals of the earth with Fulton, mocks at the opposing stubbornness of winds and waves; and with Jenner, disarms the most terrible of all diseases, and brings it under complete subjection to prophylactic means. The cause of these new acquisitions of knowledge is not a mystery. Nor is it to be traced to any marvellous revelation of later times, but to the keener perspicacity manifested by philosophers since the age of Bacon, in their observation of the phenomena and laws of the physical and moral worlds. Nor will Nature be offended with this increasing inquisition of her works, if rightly and reverently conducted. On the contrary, the closer the scrutiny, the higher will be her satisfaction; for, assured of her perfections, she has nothing to fear from the most searching curiosity; while she knows that every new discovery of her votary, not only tends to ennoble his mind, but to improve his heart, and enlighten him more and more in the greatness, glory, and tender benevolence of their common Author.

That this important result has not been more generally realized in this land of schools and colleges, is mainly attributable, I apprehend, to the imperfect manner in which the business of education has hitherto been conducted. Either the schoolmaster has been devoid of the lofty views and extensive acquirements so requisite to his difficult and responsible vocation, or in the indifference, ingratitude, and neglect which have accompanied his arduous labors, has met with no stimulus to put forth those Promethean powers of a cultivated intellect, which should mould into its own image the plastic energies of youth, and inform them with the light, and fervor, and beauty of conscious intelligence. One thing is clear, however, that in the system of education pursued by the generality of our seminaries of every class, the order of nature is inverted, by tasking the memory of the pupil, while the primary and most important faculty of attention, is in the main neglected, Hence the mind becomes lumbered with accumulated terms, the mere 65

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