"Man," says Carlyle, "has reflected his two-fold nature in history. 'He
is of earth,' but his thoughts are with the stars. Mean and petty his
wants and his desires; yet they serve a soul exalted with grand,
glorious aims, with immortal longings, with thoughts which sweep the
heavens and 'wander through eternity.' A pigmy standing on the outward
crust of this small planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches outward to
the infinite, and there finds rest." Then turning to the combined
effects of individual lives, the same great writer says: "History is a
reflex of this double life. Every epoch has two aspects--one calm, broad
and solemn--looking towards eternity; the other agitated, petty,
vehement, and confused looking towards time." "Man," says Sir William
Hamilton, one of the greatest of true philosophers, "is not an organism:
he is an intelligence, served by organs." Says Whately: "The heavens do
indeed 'declare the glory of God,' and the human body is 'fearfully and
wonderfully made;' but man, considered, not merely as an organized
being, but as a rational agent, and as a member of society, is perhaps
the most wonderfully contrived, and to us the most interesting, specimen
of divine wisdom that we have any knowledge of."