NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM
It is in his stupendous Section, headed _Natural Supernaturalism_,
that the Professor first becomes a Seer; and, after long effort, such
as we have witnessed, finally subdues under his feet this refractory
Clothes-Philosophy, and takes victorious possession thereof. Phantasms
enough he has had to struggle with; 'Cloth-webs and Cob-webs,' of
Imperial Mantles, Superannuated Symbols, and what not: yet still did
he courageously pierce through. Nay, worst of all, two quite
mysterious, world-embracing Phantasms, TIME and SPACE, have ever
hovered round him, perplexing and bewildering: but with these also he
now resolutely grapples, these also he victoriously rends asunder. In
a word, he has looked fixedly on Existence, till, one after the other,
its earthly hulls and garnitures have all melted away; and now, to his
rapt vision, the interior celestial Holy of Holies lies disclosed.
Here, therefore, properly it is that the Philosophy of Clothes attains
to Transcendentalism; this last leap, can we but clear it, takes us
safe into the promised land, where _Palingenesia_, in all senses, may
be considered as beginning. 'Courage, then!' may our Diogenes exclaim,
with better right than Diogenes the First once did. This stupendous
Section we, after long painful meditation, have found not to be
unintelligible; but, on the contrary, to grow clear, nay radiant, and
all-illuminating. Let the reader, turning on it what utmost force of
speculative intellect is in him, do his part; as we, by judicious
selection and adjustment, shall study to do ours:
'Deep has been, and is, the significance of Miracles,' thus quietly
begins the Professor; 'far deeper perhaps than we imagine. Meanwhile,
the question of questions were: What specially is a Miracle? To that
Dutch King of Siam, an icicle had been a miracle; whoso had carried
with him an air-pump, and vial of vitriolic ether, might have worked a
miracle. To my Horse, again, who unhappily is still more unscientific,
do not I work a miracle, and magical "_Open sesame!_" every time I
please to pay twopence, and open for him an impassable _Schlagbaum_,
or shut Turnpike?
'"But is not a real Miracle simply a violation of the Laws of Nature?"
ask several. Whom I answer by this new question: What are the Laws of
Nature? To me perhaps the rising of one from the dead were no
violation of these Laws, but a confirmation; were some far deeper Law,
now first penetrated into, and by Spiritual Force, even as the rest
have all been, brought to bear on us with its Material Force.
'Here too may some inquire, not without astonishment: On what ground
shall one, that can make Iron swim, come and declare that therefore he
can teach Religion? To us, truly, of the Nineteenth Century, such
declaration were inept enough; which nevertheless to our fathers, of
the First Century, was full of meaning.
'"But is it not the deepest Law of Nature that she be constant?" cries
an illuminated class: "Is not the Machine of the Universe fixed to
move by unalterable rules?" Probable enough, good friends: nay I, too,
must believe that the God, whom ancient inspired men assert to be
"without variableness or shadow of turning," does indeed never change;
that Nature, that the Universe, which no one whom it so pleases can be
prevented from calling a Machine, does move by the most unalterable
rules. And now of you, too, I make the old inquiry: What those same
unalterable rules, forming the complete Statute-Book of Nature, may
possibly be?
'They stand written in our Works of Science, say you; in the
accumulated records of Man's Experience?--Was Man with his Experience
present at the Creation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any
deepest scientific individuals yet dived-down to the foundations of the
Universe, and gauged everything there? Did the Maker take them into His
counsel; that they read His groundplan of the incomprehensible All; and
can say, This stands marked therein, and no more than this? Alas, not
in anywise! These scientific individuals have been nowhere but where we
also are; have seen some handbreadths deeper than we see into the Deep
that is infinite, without bottom as without shore.
'Laplace's Book on the Stars, wherein he exhibits that certain
Planets, with their Satellites, gyrate round our worthy Sun, at a rate
and in a course, which, by greatest good fortune, he and the like of
him have succeeded in detecting,--is to me as precious as to another.
But is this what thou namest "Mechanism of the Heavens," and "System
of the World"; this, wherein Sirius and the Pleiades, and all
Herschel's Fifteen-thousand Suns per minute, being left out, some
paltry handful of Moons, and inert Balls, had been--looked at,
nicknamed, and marked in the Zodiacal Way-bill; so that we can now
prate of their Whereabout; their How, their Why, their What, being hid
from us, as in the signless Inane?
'System of Nature! To the wisest man, wide as is his vision, Nature
remains of quite _infinite_ depth, of quite infinite expansion; and
all Experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries
and measured square-miles. The course of Nature's phases, on this our
little fraction of a Planet, is partially known to us: but who knows
what deeper courses these depend on; what infinitely larger Cycle (of
causes) our little Epicycle revolves on? To the Minnow every cranny
and pebble, and quality and accident, of its little native Creek may
have become familiar: but does the Minnow understand the Ocean Tides
and periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's
Eclipses; by all which the condition of its little Creek is regulated,
and may, from time to time (_un_miraculously enough), be quite overset
and reversed? Such a Minnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth; his
Ocean the immeasurable All; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the
mysterious Course of Providence through Æons of Æons.
'We speak of the Volume of Nature: and truly a Volume it is,--whose
Author and Writer is God. To read it! Dost thou, does man, so much as
well know the Alphabet thereof? With its Words, Sentences, and grand
descriptive Pages, poetical and philosophical, spread out through
Solar Systems, and Thousands of Years, we shall not try thee. It is a
Volume written in celestial hieroglyphs, in the true Sacred-writing;
of which even Prophets are happy that they can read here a line and
there a line. As for your Institutes, and Academies of Science, they
strive bravely; and, from amid the thick-crowded, inextricably
intertwisted hieroglyphic writing, pick-out, by dextrous combination,
some Letters in the vulgar Character, and therefrom put together this
and the other economic Recipe, of high avail in Practice. That Nature
is more than some boundless Volume of such Recipes, or huge, well-nigh
inexhaustible Domestic-Cookery Book, of which the whole secret will in
this manner one day evolve itself, the fewest dream.
* * * * *
'Custom,' continues the Professor, 'doth make dotards of us all.
Consider well, thou wilt find that Custom is the greatest of Weavers;
and weaves air-raiment for all the Spirits of the Universe; whereby
indeed these dwell with us visibly, as ministering servants, in our
houses and workshops; but their spiritual nature becomes, to the most,
forever hidden. Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us,
from the first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it;
that our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are
oftenest simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay,
what is Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against Custom;
an ever-renewed effort to _transcend_ the sphere of blind Custom, and
so become Transcendental?
'Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of Custom: but
of all these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that
the Miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be Miraculous. True,
it is by this means we live; for man must work as well as wonder: and
herein is Custom so far a kind nurse, guiding him to his true benefit.
But she is a fond foolish nurse, or rather we are false foolish
nurslings, when, in our resting and reflecting hours, we prolong the
same deception. Am I to view the Stupendous with stupid indifference,
because I have seen it twice, or two-hundred, or two-million times?
There is no reason in Nature or in Art why I should: unless, indeed, I
am a mere Work-Machine, for whom the divine gift of Thought were no
other than the terrestrial gift of Steam is to the Steam-engine; a
power whereby Cotton might be spun, and money and money's worth
realised.
'Notable enough too, here as elsewhere, wilt thou find the potency of
Names; which indeed are but one kind of such custom-woven,
wonder-hiding Garments. Witchcraft, and all manner of Spectre-work,
and Demonology, we have now named Madness and Diseases of the Nerves.
Seldom reflecting that still the new question comes upon us: What is
Madness, what are Nerves? Ever, as before, does Madness remain a
mysterious-terrific, altogether _infernal_ boiling-up of the Nether
Chaotic Deep, through this fair-painted Vision of Creation, which
swims thereon, which we name the Real. Was Luther's Picture of the
Devil less a Reality, whether it were formed within the bodily eye, or
without it? In every the wisest Soul lies a whole world of internal
Madness, an authentic Demon Empire; out of which, indeed, his world of
Wisdom has been creatively built together, and now rests there, as on
its dark foundations does a habitable flowery Earth-rind.
* * * * *
'But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hiding Wonder, as for
many other ends, are your two grand fundamental world-enveloping
Appearances, SPACE and TIME. These, as spun and woven for us from
before Birth itself, to clothe our celestial ME for dwelling here, and
yet to blind it,--lie all embracing, as the universal canvas, or warp
and woof, whereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence,
weave and paint themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, shall you
endeavour to strip them off; you can, at best, but rend them asunder
for moments, and look through.
'Fortunatus had a wishing Hat, which when he put on, and wished
himself Anywhere, behold he was There. By this means had Fortunatus
triumphed over Space, he had annihilated Space; for him there was no
Where, but all was Here. Were a Hatter to establish himself, in the
Wahngasse of Weissnichtwo, and make felts of this sort for all
mankind, what a world we should have of it! Still stranger, should, on
the opposite side of the street, another Hatter establish himself; and
as his fellow-craftsman made Space-annihilating Hats, make
Time-annihilating! Of both would I purchase, were it with my last
groschen; but chiefly of this latter. To clap-on your felt, and,
simply by wishing that you were Any_where_, straightway to be _There_!
Next to clap-on your other felt, and, simply by wishing that you were
Any_when_, straightway to be _Then_! This were indeed the grander:
shooting at will from the Fire-Creation of the World to its
Fire-Consummation; here historically present in the First Century,
conversing face to face with Paul and Seneca; there prophetically in
the Thirty-first, conversing also face to face with other Pauls and
Senecas, who as yet stand hidden in the depth of that late Time!
'Or thinkest thou it were impossible, unimaginable? Is the Past
annihilated, then, or only past; is the Future non-extant, or only
future? Those mystic faculties of thine, Memory and Hope, already
answer: already through those mystic avenues, thou the Earth-blinded
summonest both Past and Future, and communest with them, though as yet
darkly, and with mute beckonings. The curtains of Yesterday drop down,
the curtains of Tomorrow roll up; but Yesterday and Tomorrow both
_are_. Pierce through the Time-element, glance into the Eternal.
Believe what thou findest written in the sanctuaries of Man's Soul,
even as all Thinkers, in all ages, have devoutly read it there: that
Time and Space are not God, but creations of God: that with God as it
is a universal HERE, so is it an everlasting NOW.
'And seest thou therein any glimpse of IMMORTALITY?--O Heaven! Is the
white Tomb of our Loved One, who died from our arms, and had to be
left behind us there, which rises in the distance, like a pale,
mournfully receding Milestone, to tell how many toilsome uncheered
miles we have journeyed on alone,--but a pale spectral Illusion! Is
the lost Friend still mysteriously Here, even as we are Here
mysteriously, with God!--Know of a truth that only the Time-shadows
have perished, or are perishable; that the real Being of whatever was,
and whatever is, and whatever will be, _is_ even now and forever.
This, should it unhappily seem new, thou mayest ponder at thy leisure;
for the next twenty years, or the next twenty centuries: believe it
thou must; understand it thou canst not.
'That the Thought-forms, Space and Time, wherein, once for all, we are
sent into this Earth to live, should condition and determine our whole
Practical reasonings, conceptions, and imagines or imaginings,--seems
altogether fit, just, and unavoidable. But that they should,
furthermore, usurp such sway over pure spiritual Meditation, and blind
us to the wonder everywhere lying close on us, seems nowise so. Admit
Space and Time to their due rank as Forms of Thought; nay even, if
thou wilt, to their quite undue rank of Realities: and consider, then,
with thyself how their thin disguises hide from us the brightest
God-effulgences! Thus, were it not miraculous, could I stretch forth
my hand and clutch the Sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my
hand and therewith clutch many a thing, and swing it hither and
thither. Art thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the Miracle lies
in miles of distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to
see that the true inexplicable God-revealing Miracle lies in this,
that I can stretch forth my hand at all; that I have free Force to
clutch aught therewith? Innumerable other of this sort are the
deceptions, and wonder-hiding stupefactions, which Space practises on
us.
'Still worse is it with regard to Time. Your grand anti-magician, and
universal wonder-hider, is this same lying Time. Had we but the
Time-annihilating Hat, to put on for once only, we should see
ourselves in a World of Miracles, wherein all fabled or authentic
Thaumaturgy, and feats of Magic, were outdone. But unhappily we have
not such a Hat; and man, poor fool that he is, can seldom and scantily
help himself without one.
'Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Orpheus, or Amphion, built
the walls of Thebes by the mere sound of his Lyre? Yet tell me, Who
built these walls of Weissnichtwo; summoning-out all the sandstone
rocks, to dance along from the _Steinbruch_ (now a huge Troglodyte
Chasm, with frightful green-mantled pools); and shape themselves into
Doric and Ionic pillars, squared ashlar houses and noble streets? Was
it not the still higher Orpheus, or Orpheuses, who, in past centuries,
by the divine Music of Wisdom, succeeded in civilising Man? Our
highest Orpheus walked in Judea, eighteen hundred years ago: his
sphere-melody, flowing in wild native tones, took captive the ravished
souls of men; and, being of a truth sphere-melody, still flows and
sounds, though now with thousandfold accompaniments, and rich
symphonies, through all our hearts; and modulates, and divinely leads
them. Is that a wonder, which happens in two hours; and does it cease
to be wonderful if happening in two million? Not only was Thebes built
by the music of an Orpheus; but without the music of some inspired
Orpheus was no city ever built, no work that man glories-in ever done.
'Sweep away the Illusion of Time; glance, if thou hast eyes, from the
near moving-cause to its far-distant Mover: The stroke that came
transmitted through a whole galaxy of elastic balls, was it less a
stroke than if the last ball only had been struck, and sent flying? O,
could I (with the Time-annihilating Hat) transport thee direct from
the Beginnings to the Endings, how were thy eyesight unsealed, and thy
heart set flaming in the Light-sea of celestial wonder! Then sawest
thou that this fair Universe, were it in the meanest province thereof,
is in very deed the star-domed City of God; that through every star,
through every grass-blade, and most through every Living Soul, the
glory of a present God still beams. But Nature, which is the
Time-vesture of God, and reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the
foolish.
'Again, could anything be more miraculous than an actual authentic
Ghost? The English Johnson longed, all his life, to see one; but could
not, though he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church-vaults, and
tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor! Did he never, with the mind's eye
as well as with the body's, look round him into that full tide of
human Life he so loved; did he never so much as look into Himself? The
good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as heart could wish;
well-nigh a million of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his side.
Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time; compress the
threescore years into three minutes: what else was he, what else are
we? Are we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an
Appearance; and that fade-away again into air and Invisibility? This
is no metaphor, it is a simple scientific _fact_: we start out of
Nothingness, take figure, and are Apparitions; round us, as round the
veriest spectre, is Eternity; and to Eternity minutes are as years and
æons. Come there not tones of Love and Faith, as from celestial
harp-strings, like the Song of beautified Souls? And again, do not we
squeak and jibber (in our discordant, screech-owlish debatings and
recriminatings); and glide bodeful, and feeble, and fearful; or uproar
(_poltern_), and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead,--till the scent
of the morning air summons us to our still Home; and dreamy Night
becomes awake and Day? Where now is Alexander of Macedon: does the
steel Host, that yelled in fierce battle-shouts at Issus and Arbela,
remain behind him; or have they all vanished utterly, even as
perturbed Goblins must? Napoleon too, and his Moscow Retreats and
Austerlitz Campaigns! Was it all other than the veriest Spectre-hunt;
which has now, with its howling tumult that made Night hideous,
flitted away?--Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand-million walking the
Earth openly at noontide; some half-hundred have vanished from it,
some half-hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch ticks once.
'O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider that we not only
carry each a future Ghost within him; but are, in very deed, Ghosts!
These Limbs, whence had we them; this stormy Force; this life-blood
with its burning Passion? They are dust and shadow; a Shadow-system
gathered round our ME; wherein, through some moments or years, the
Divine Essence is to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior on his
strong war-horse, fire flashes through his eyes; force dwells in his
arm and heart: but warrior and war-horse are a vision; a revealed
Force, nothing more. Stately they tread the Earth, as if it were a
firm substance: fool! the earth is but a film; it cracks in twain, and
warrior and war-horse sink beyond plummet's sounding. Plummet's?
Fantasy herself will not follow them. A little while ago, they were
not; a little while, and they are not, their very ashes are not.
'So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to the end.
Generation after generation takes to itself the Form of a Body; and
forth-issuing from Cimmerian Night, on Heaven's mission APPEARS. What
Force and Fire is in each he expends: one grinding in the mill of
Industry; one hunter-like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of
Science; one madly dashed in pieces on the rocks of Strife, in war
with his fellow:--and then the Heaven-sent is recalled; his earthly
Vesture falls away, and soon even to Sense becomes a vanished Shadow.
Thus, like some wild-flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's
Artillery, does this mysterious MANKIND thunder and flame, in
long-drawn, quick-succeeding grandeur, through the unknown Deep. Thus,
like a God-created, fire-breathing Spirit-host, we emerge from the
Inane; haste stormfully across the astonished Earth; then plunge again
into the Inane. Earth's mountains are levelled, and her seas filled
up, in our passage: can the Earth, which is but dead and a vision,
resist Spirits which have reality and are alive? On the hardest
adamant some footprint of us is stamped-in; the last Rear of the host
will read traces of the earliest Van. But whence?--O Heaven, whither?
Sense knows not; Faith knows not; only that it is through Mystery to
Mystery, from God and to God.
"We _are such stuff_
As Dreams are made of, and our little Life
Is rounded with a sleep!"'