DIALOGUE THE FIRST. THE VISION.

I passed the autumn and the early winter of the years 18-- and 18-- at

Rome. The society was, as is usual in that metropolis of the old

Christian world, numerous and diversified. In it there were found many

intellectual foreigners and amongst them some distinguished Britons, who

had a higher object in making this city their residence than mere

idleness or vague curiosity. Amongst these my countrymen, there were two

gentlemen with whom I formed a particular intimacy and who were my

frequent companions in the visits which I made to the monuments of the

grandeur of the old Romans and to the masterpieces of ancient and modern

art. One of them I shall call Ambrosio: he was a man of highly

cultivated taste, great classical erudition, and minute historical

knowledge. In religion he was of the Roman Catholic persuasion; but a

Catholic of the most liberal school, who in another age might have been

secretary to Ganganelli. His views upon the subjects of politics and

religion were enlarged; but his leaning was rather to the power of a

single magistrate than to the authority of a democracy or even of an

oligarchy. The other friend, whom I shall call Onuphrio, was a man of a

very different character. Belonging to the English aristocracy, he had

some of the prejudices usually attached to birth and rank; but his

manners were gentle, his temper good, and his disposition amiable. Having

been partly educated at a northern university in Britain, he had adopted

views in religion which went even beyond toleration and which might be

regarded as entering the verge of scepticism. For a patrician he was

very liberal in his political views. His imagination was poetical and

discursive, his taste good and his tact extremely fine, so exquisite,

indeed, that it sometimes approached to morbid sensibility, and disgusted

him with slight defects and made him keenly sensible of small perfections

to which common minds would have been indifferent.

In the beginning of October on a very fine afternoon I drove with these

two friends to the Colosaeum, a monument which, for the hundredth time

even, I had viewed with a new admiration; my friends partook of my

sentiments. I shall give the conversation which occurred there in their

own words. Onuphrio said, "How impressive are those ruins!--what a

character do they give us of the ancient Romans, what magnificence of

design, what grandeur of execution! Had we not historical documents to

inform us of the period when this structure was raised and of the

purposes for which it was designed, it might be imagined the work of a

race of giants, a Council Chamber for those Titans fabled to have warred

against the gods of the pagan mythology. The size of the masses of

travertine of which it is composed is in harmony with the immense

magnitude of the building. It is hardly to be wondered at that a people

which constructed such works for their daily sports, for their usual

amusements, should have possessed strength, enduring energy, and

perseverance sufficient to enable them to conquer the world. They appear

always to have formed their plans and made their combinations as if their

power were beyond the reach of chance, independent of the influence of

time, and founded for unlimited duration--for eternity!"

Ambrosio took up the discourse of Onuphrio, and said, "The aspect of this

wonderful heap of ruins is so picturesque that it is impossible to regret

its decay; and at this season of the year the colours of the vegetation

are in harmony with those of the falling ruins, and how perfectly the

whole landscape is in tone! The remains of the palace of the Caesars and

of the golden halls of Nero appear in the distance, their gray and

tottering turrets and their moss-stained arches reposing, as it were,

upon the decaying vegetation: and there is nothing that marks the

existence of life except the few pious devotees, who wander from station

to station in the arena below, kneeling before the cross, and

demonstrating the triumph of a religion, which received in this very spot

in the early period of its existence one of its most severe persecutions,

and which, nevertheless, has preserved what remains of that building,

where attempts were made to stifle it almost at its birth; for, without

the influence of Christianity, these majestic ruins would have been

dispersed or levelled to the dust. Plundered of their lead and iron by

the barbarians, Goths, and Vandals, and robbed even of their stones by

Roman princes, the Barberini, they owe what remains of their relics to

the sanctifying influence of that faith which has preserved for the world

all that was worth preserving, not merely arts and literature but

likewise that which constitutes the progressive nature of intellect and

the institutions which afford to us happiness in this world and hopes of

a blessed immortality in the next. And, being of the faith of Rome, I

may say, that the preservation of this pile by the sanctifying effect of

a few crosses planted round it, is almost a miraculous event. And what a

contrast the present application of this building, connected with holy

feelings and exalted hopes, is to that of the ancient one, when it was

used for exhibiting to the Roman people the destruction of men by wild

beasts, or of men, more savage than wild beasts, by each other, to

gratify a horrible appetite for cruelty, founded upon a still more

detestable lust, that of universal domination! And who would have

supposed, in the time of Titus, that a faith, despised in its

insignificant origin, and persecuted from the supposed obscurity of its

founder and its principles, should have reared a dome to the memory of

one of its humblest teachers, more glorious than was ever framed for

Jupiter or Apollo in the ancient world, and have preserved even the ruins

of the temples of the pagan deities, and have burst forth in splendour

and majesty, consecrating truth amidst the shrines of error, employing

the idols of the Roman superstition for the most holy purposes and rising

a bright and constant light amidst the dark and starless night which

followed the destruction of the Roman empire!"

Onuphrio now resumed the discourse. He said, "I have not the same

exalted views on the subject which our friend Ambrosio has so eloquently

expressed. Some little of the perfect state in which these ruins exist

may have been owing to causes which he has described; but these causes

have only lately begun to operate, and the mischief was done before

Christianity was established at Rome. Feeling differently on these

subjects, I admire this venerable ruin rather as a record of the

destruction of the power of the greatest people that ever existed, than

as a proof of the triumph of Christianity; and I am carried forward in

melancholy anticipation to the period when even the magnificent dome of

St. Peter's will be in a similar state to that in which the Colosaeum now

is, and when its ruins may be preserved by the sanctifying influence of

some new and unknown faith; when, perhaps, the statue of Jupiter, which

at present receives the kiss of the devotee, as the image of St. Peter,

may be employed for another holy use, as the personification of a future

saint or divinity; and when the monuments of the papal magnificence shall

be mixed with the same dust as that which now covers the tombs of the

Caesars. Such, I am sorry to say, is the general history of all the

works and institutions belonging to humanity. They rise, flourish, and

then decay and fall; and the period of their decline is generally

proportional to that of their elevation. In ancient Thebes or Memphis

the peculiar genius of the people has left us monuments from which we can

judge of their arts, though we cannot understand the nature of their

superstitions. Of Babylon and of Troy the remains are almost extinct;

and what we know of these famous cities is almost entirely derived from

literary records. Ancient Greece and Rome we view in the few remains of

their monuments; and the time will arrive when modern Rome shall be what

ancient Rome now is; and ancient Rome and Athens will be what Tyre or

Carthage now are, known only by coloured dust in the desert, or coloured

sand, containing the fragments of bricks or glass, washed up by the wave

of a stormy sea. I might pursue these thoughts still further, and show

that the wood of the cross, or the bronze of the statue, decay as quickly

as if they had not been sanctified; and I think I could show that their

influence is owing to the imagination, which, when infinite time is

considered, or the course of ages even, is null and its effect

imperceptible; and similar results occur, whether the faith be that of

Osiris, of Jupiter, of Jehovah, or of Jesus."

To this Ambrosio replied, his countenance and the tones of his voice

expressing some emotion: "I do not think, Onuphrio, that you consider

this question with your usual sagacity or acuteness; indeed, I never hear

you on the subject of religion without pain and without a feeling of

regret that you have not applied your powerful understanding to a more

minute and correct examination of the evidences of revealed religion. You

would then, I think, have seen, in the origin, progress, elevation,

decline and fall of the empires of antiquity, proofs that they were

intended for a definite end in the scheme of human redemption; you would

have found prophecies which have been amply verified; and the foundation

or the ruin of a kingdom, which appears in civil history so great an

event, in the history of man, in his religious institutions, as

comparatively of small moment; you would have found the establishment of

the worship of one God amongst a despised and contemned people as the

most important circumstance in the history of the early world; you would

have found the Christian dispensation naturally arising out of the

Jewish, and the doctrines of the pagan nations all preparatory to the

triumph and final establishment of a creed fitted for the most

enlightened state of the human mind and equally adapted to every climate

and every people."

To this animated appeal of Ambrosio, Onuphrio replied in the most

tranquil manner and with the air of an unmoved philosopher:--"You mistake

me, Ambrosio, if you consider me as hostile to Christianity. I am not of

the school of the French Encyclopaedists, or of the English infidels. I

consider religion as essential to man, and belonging to the human mind in

the same manner as instincts belong to the brute creation, a light, if

you please of revelation to guide him through the darkness of this life,

and to keep alive his undying hope of immortality: but pardon me if I

consider this instinct as equally useful in all its different forms, and

still a divine light through whatever medium or cloud of human passion or

prejudice it passes. I reverence it in the followers of Brahmah, in the

disciple of Mahomet, and I wonder at in all the variety of forms it

adopts in the Christian world. You must not be angry with me that I do

not allow infallibility to your Church, having been myself brought up by

Protestant parents, who were rigidly attached to the doctrines of

Calvin."

I saw Ambrosio's countenance kindle at Onuphrio's explanation of his

opinions, and he appeared to be meditating an angry reply. I endeavoured

to change the conversation to the state of the Colosaeum, with which it

had begun. "These ruins," I said, "as you have both observed, are highly

impressive; yet when I saw them six years ago they had a stronger effect

on my imagination; whether it was the charm of novelty, or that my mind

was fresher, or that the circumstances under which I saw them were

peculiar, I know not, but probably all these causes operated in affecting

my mind. It was a still and beautiful evening in the end of May; the

last sunbeams were dying away in the western sky and the first moonbeams

shining in the eastern; the bright orange tints lighted up the ruins and

as it were kindled the snows that still remained on the distant

Apennines, which were visible from the highest accessible part of the

amphitheatre. In this glow of colouring, the green of advanced spring

softened the grey and yellow tints of the decaying stones, and as the

lights gradually became fainter, the masses appeared grander and more

gigantic; and when the twilight had entirely disappeared, the contrast of

light and shade in the beams of the full moon and beneath a sky of the

brightest sapphire, but so highly illuminated that only Jupiter and a few

stars of the first magnitude were visible, gave a solemnity and

magnificence to the scene which awakened the highest degree of that

emotion which is so properly termed the sublime. The beauty and the

permanency of the heavens and the principle of conservation belonging to

the system of the universe, the works of the Eternal and Divine

Architect, were finely opposed to the perishing and degraded works of man

in his most active and powerful state. And at this moment so humble

appeared to me the condition of the most exalted beings belonging to the

earth, so feeble their combinations, so minute the point of space, and so

limited the period of time in which they act, that I could hardly avoid

comparing the generations of man, and the effects of his genius and

power, to the swarms of luceoli or fire-flies which were dancing around

me and that appeared flitting and sparkling amidst the gloom and darkness

of the ruins, but which were no longer visible when they rose above the

horizon, their feeble light being lost and utterly obscured in the

brightness of the moonbeams in the heavens."

Onuphrio said: "I am not sorry that you have changed the conversation.

You have given us the history of a most interesting recollection and well

expressed a solemn though humiliating feeling. In such moments and among

such scenes it is impossible not to be struck with the nothingness of

human glory and the transiency of human works. This, one of the greatest

monuments on the face of the earth, was raised by a people, then its

masters, only seventeen centuries ago; in a few ages more it will be but

as dust, and of all the testimonials of the vanity or power of man,

whether raised to immortalise his name, or to contain his decaying bones

without a name, no one is known to have a duration beyond what is

measured by the existence of a hundred generations; and it is only to

multiply centuple for instance the period of time, and the memorials of a

village and the monuments of a country churchyard may be compared with

those of an empire and the remains of the world."

Ambrosio, to whom the conversation seemed disagreeable, put us in mind of

an engagement we had made to spend the evening at the conversazione of a

celebrated lady, and proposed to call the carriage. The reflections

which the conversation and the scene had left in my mind little disposed

me for general society. I requested them to keep their engagement, and

said I was resolved to spend an hour amidst the solitude of the ruins,

and desired them to send back the carriage for me. They left me,

expressing a hope that my poetical or melancholy fancy might not be the

occasion of a cold, and wished me the company of some of the spectres of

the ancient Romans.

When I was left alone, I seated myself in the moonshine, on one of the

steps leading to the seats supposed to have been occupied by the

patricians in the Colosaeum at the time of the public games. The train

of ideas in which I had indulged before my friends left me continued to

flow with a vividness and force increased by the stillness and solitude

of the scene; and the full moon has always a peculiar effect on these

moods of feeling in my mind, giving to them a wildness and a kind of

indefinite sensation, such as I suppose belong at all times to the true

poetical temperament. It must be so, I thought to myself; no new city

will rise again out of the double ruins of this; no new empire will be

founded upon these colossal remains of that of the old Romans. The

world, like the individual, flourishes in youth, rises to strength in

manhood, falls into decay in age; and the ruins of an empire are like the

decrepit frame of an individual, except that they have some tints of

beauty which nature bestows upon them. The sun of civilisation arose in

the East, advanced towards the West, and is now at its meridian; in a few

centuries more it will probably be seen sinking below the horizon even in

the new world, and there will be left darkness only where there is a

bright light, deserts of sand where there were populous cities, and

stagnant morasses where the green meadow or the bright cornfield once

appeared. I called up images of this kind in my imagination. "Time," I

said, "which purifies, and as it were sanctifies the mind, destroys and

brings into utter decay the body; and, even in nature, its influence

seems always degrading. She is represented by the poets as eternal in

her youth, but amongst these ruins she appears to me eternal in her age,

and here no traces of renovation appear in the ancient of days." I had

scarcely concluded this ideal sentence when my reverie became deeper, the

ruins surrounding me appeared to vanish from my sight, the light of the

moon became more intense, and the orb itself seemed to expand in a flood

of splendour. At the same time that my visual organs appeared so

singularly affected, the most melodious sounds filled my ear, softer yet

at the same time deeper and fuller than I had ever heard in the most

harmonious and perfect concert. It appeared to me that I had entered a

new state of existence, and I was so perfectly lost in the new kind of

sensation which I experienced that I had no recollections and no

perceptions of identity. On a sudden the music ceased, but the brilliant

light still continued to surround me, and I heard a low but extremely

distinct and sweet voice, which appeared to issue from the centre of it.

The sounds were at first musical like those of a harp, but they soon

became articulate, as if a prelude to some piece of sublime poetical

composition. "You, like all your brethren," said the voice, "are

entirely ignorant of every thing belonging to yourselves, the world you

inhabit, your future destinies, and the scheme of the universe; and yet

you have the folly to believe you are acquainted with the past, the

present, and the future. I am an intelligence somewhat superior to you,

though there are millions of beings as much above me in power and in

intellect as man is above the meanest and weakest reptile that crawls

beneath his feet; yet something I can teach you: yield your mind wholly

to the influence which I shall exert upon it, and you shall be undeceived

in your views of the history of the world, and of the system you

inhabit." At this moment the bright light disappeared, the sweet and

harmonious voice, which was the only proof of the presence of a superior

intelligence, ceased; I was in utter darkness and silence, and seemed to

myself to be carried rapidly upon a stream of air, without any other

sensation than that of moving quickly through space. Whilst I was still

in motion, a dim and hazy light, which seemed like that of twilight in a

rainy morning, broke upon my sight, and gradually a country displayed

itself to my view covered with forests and marshes. I saw wild animals

grazing in large savannahs, and carnivorous beasts, such as lions and

tigers, occasionally disturbing and destroying them; I saw naked savages

feeding upon wild fruits, or devouring shell-fish, or fighting with clubs

for the remains of a whale which had been thrown upon the shore. I

observed that they had no habitations, that they concealed themselves in

caves, or under the shelter of palm trees, and that the only delicious

food which nature seemed to have given to them was the date and the cocoa-

nut, and these were in very small quantities and the object of

contention. I saw that some few of these wretched human beings that

inhabited the wide waste before my eyes, had weapons pointed with flint

or fish-bone, which they made use of for destroying birds, quadrupeds, or

fishes, that they fed upon raw; but their greatest delicacy appeared to

be a maggot or worm, which they sought for with great perseverance in the

buds of the palm. When I had cast my eyes on the varied features of this

melancholy scene, which was now lighted by a rising sun, I heard again

the same voice which had astonished me in the Colosaeum, and which

said,--"See the birth of Time! Look at man in his newly created state,

full of youth and vigour. Do you see aught in this state to admire or

envy?" As the last words fell on my ear, I was again, as before, rapidly

put in motion, and I seemed again resistless to be hurried upon a stream

of air, and again in perfect darkness. In a moment, an indistinct light

again appeared before my eyes and a country opened upon my view which

appeared partly wild and partly cultivated; there were fewer woods and

morasses than in the scene which I had just before seen; I beheld men who

were covered with the skins of animals, and who were driving cattle to

enclosed pastures; I saw others who were reaping and collecting corn,

others who were making it into bread; I saw cottages furnished with many

of the conveniences of life, and a people in that state of agricultural

and pastoral improvement which has been imagined by the poets as

belonging to the golden age. The same voice, which I shall call that of

the Genius, said, "Look at these groups of men who are escaped from the

state of infancy: they owe their improvement to a few superior minds

still amongst them. That aged man whom you see with a crowd around him

taught them to build cottages; from that other they learnt to domesticate

cattle; from others to collect and sow corn and seeds of fruit. And

these arts will never be lost; another generation will see them more

perfect; the houses, in a century more, will be larger and more

convenient; the flocks of cattle more numerous; the corn-fields more

extensive; the morasses will be drained, the number of fruit-trees

increased. You shall be shown other visions of the passages of time, but

as you are carried along the stream which flows from the period of

creation to the present moment, I shall only arrest your transit to make

you observe some circumstances which will demonstrate the truths I wish

you to know, and which will explain to you the little it is permitted me

to understand of the scheme of the universe." I again found myself in

darkness and in motion, and I was again arrested by the opening of a new

scene upon my eyes. I shall describe this scene and the others in the

succession in which they appeared before me, and the observations by

which they were accompanied in the voice of the wonderful being who

appeared as my intellectual guide. In the scene which followed that of

the agricultural or pastoral people, I saw a great extent of cultivated

plains, large cities on the sea-shore, palaces--forums and temples

ornamenting them; men associated in groups, mounted on horses, and

performing military exercises; galleys moved by oars on the ocean; roads

intersecting the country covered with travellers and containing carriages

moved by men or horses. The Genius now said, "You see the early state of

civilisation of man; the cottages of the last race you beheld have become

improved into stately dwellings, palaces, and temples, in which use is

combined with ornament. The few men to whom, as I said before, the

foundations of these improvements were owing, have had divine honours

paid to their memory. But look at the instruments belonging to this

generation, and you will find that they are only of brass. You see men

who are talking to crowds around them, and others who are apparently

amusing listening groups by a kind of song or recitation; these are the

earliest bards and orators; but all their signs of thought are oral, for

written language does not yet exist." The next scene which appeared was

one of varied business and imagery. I saw a man, who bore in his hands

the same instruments as our modern smiths, presenting a vase, which

appeared to be made of iron, amidst the acclamations of an assembled

multitude engaged in triumphal procession before the altars dignified by

the name of Apollo at Delphi; and I saw in the same place men who carried

rolls of papyrus in their hands and wrote upon them with reeds containing

ink made from the soot of wood mixed with a solution of glue. "See," the

Genius said, "an immense change produced in the condition of society by

the two arts of which you here see the origin; the one, that of rendering

iron malleable, which is owing to a single individual, an obscure Greek;

the other, that of making thought permanent in written characters, an art

which has gradually arisen from the hieroglyphics which you may observe

on yonder pyramids. You will now see human life more replete with power

and activity." Again, another scene broke upon my vision. I saw the

bronze instruments, which had belonged to the former state of society,

thrown away; malleable iron converted into hard steel, this steel applied

to a thousand purposes of civilised life; I saw bands of men who made use

of it for defensive armour and for offensive weapons; I saw these iron-

clad men, in small numbers subduing thousands of savages, and

establishing amongst them their arts and institutions; I saw a few men on

the eastern shores of Europe, resisting, with the same materials, the

united forces of Asia; I saw a chosen band die in defence of their

country, destroyed by an army a thousand times as numerous; and I saw

this same army, in its turn, caused to disappear, and destroyed or driven

from the shores of Europe by the brethren of that band of martyred

patriots; I saw bodies of these men traversing the sea, founding

colonies, building cities, and wherever they established themselves,

carrying with them their peculiar arts. Towns and temples arose

containing schools, and libraries filled with the rolls of the papyrus.

The same steel, such a tremendous instrument of power in the hands of the

warrior, I saw applied, by the genius of the artist, to strike forms even

more perfect than those of life out of the rude marble; and I saw the

walls of the palaces and temples covered with pictures, in which

historical events were portrayed with the truth of nature and the poetry

of mind. The voice now awakened my attention by saying, "You have now

before you the vision of that state of society which is an object of

admiration to the youth of modern times, and the recollections of which,

and the precepts founded on these recollections, constitute an important

part of your education. Your maxims of war and policy, your taste in

letters and the arts, are derived from models left by that people, or by

their immediate imitators, whom you shall now see." I opened my eyes,

and recognised the very spot in which I was sitting when the vision

commenced. I was on the top of an arcade under a silken canopy, looking

down upon the tens of thousands of people who were crowded in the seats

of the Colosaeum, ornamented with all the spoils that the wealth of a

world can give; I saw in the arena below animals of the most

extraordinary kind, and which have rarely been seen living in modern

Europe--the giraffe, the zebra, the rhinoceros, and the ostrich from the

deserts of Africa beyond the Niger, the hippopotamus from the Upper Nile,

and the royal tiger and the gnu from the banks of the Ganges. Looking

over Rome, which, in its majesty of palaces and temples, and in its

colossal aqueducts bringing water even from the snows of the distant

Apennines, seemed more like the creation of a supernatural power than the

work of human hands; looking over Rome to the distant landscape, I saw

the whole face, as it were, of the ancient world adorned with miniature

images of this splendid metropolis. Where the Roman conquered, there he

civilised; where he carried his arms, there he fixed likewise his

household gods; and from the deserts of Arabia to the mountains of

Caledonia there appeared but one people, having the same arts, language,

and letters--all of Grecian origin. I looked again, and saw an entire

change in the brilliant aspect of this Roman world--the people of

conquerors and heroes was no longer visible; the cities were filled with

an idle and luxurious population; those farms which had been cultivated

by warriors, who left the plough to take the command of armies, were now

in the hands of slaves; and the militia of freemen were supplanted by

bands of mercenaries, who sold the empire to the highest bidder. I saw

immense masses of warriors collecting in the north and east, carrying

with them no other proofs of cultivation but their horses and steel arms;

I saw these savages everywhere attacking this mighty empire, plundering

cities, destroying the monuments of arts and literature, and, like wild

beasts devouring a noble animal, tearing into pieces and destroying the

Roman power. Ruin, desolation, and darkness were before me, and I closed

my eyes to avoid the melancholy scene. "See," said the Genius, "the

melancholy termination of a power believed by its founders invincible,

and intended to be eternal. But you will find, though the glory and

greatness belonging to its military genius have passed away, yet those

belonging to the arts and institutions, by which it adorned and dignified

life, will again arise in another state of society." I opened my eyes

again, and I saw Italy recovering from her desolation--towns arising with

governments almost upon the model of ancient Athens and Rome, and these

different small states rivals in arts and arms; I saw the remains of

libraries, which had been preserved in monasteries and churches by a holy

influence which even the Goth and Vandal respected, again opened to the

people; I saw Rome rising from her ashes, the fragments of statues found

amidst the ruins of her palaces and imperial villas becoming the models

for the regeneration of art; I saw magnificent temples raised in this

city become the metropolis of a new and Christian world, and ornamented

with the most brilliant masterpieces of the arts of design; I saw a

Tuscan city, as it were, contending with Rome for pre-eminence in the

productions of genius, and the spirit awakened in Italy spreading its

influence from the South to the North. "Now," the Genius said, "society

has taken its modern and permanent aspect. Consider for a moment its

relations to letters and to arms as contrasted with those of the ancient

world." I looked, and saw, that in the place of the rolls of papyrus,

libraries were now filled with books. "Behold," the Genius said, "the

printing-press; by the invention of Faust the productions of genius are,

as it were, made imperishable, capable of indefinite multiplication, and

rendered an unalienable heritage of the human mind. By this art,

apparently so humble, the progress of society is secured, and man is

spared the humiliation of witnessing again scenes like those which

followed the destruction of the Roman Empire. Now look to the warriors

of modern times; you see the spear, the javelin, the shield, and the

cuirass are changed for the musket and the light artillery. The German

monk who discovered gunpowder did not meanly affect the destinies of

mankind; wars are become less bloody by becoming less personal; mere

brutal strength is rendered of comparatively little avail; all the

resources of civilisation are required to maintain and move a large army;

wealth, ingenuity, and perseverance become the principal elements of

success; civilised man is rendered in consequence infinitely superior to

the savage, and gunpowder gives permanence to his triumph, and secures

the cultivated nations from ever being again overrun by the inroads of

millions of barbarians. There is so much identity of feature in the

character of the two or three centuries that are just passed, that I wish

you only to take a very transient view of the political and military

events belonging to them. You will find attempts made by the chiefs of

certain great nations to acquire predominance and empire; you will see

those attempts, after being partially successful, resisted by other

nations, and the balance of power, apparently for a moment broken, again

restored. Amongst the rival nations that may be considered as forming

the republic of modern Europe, you will see one pre-eminent for her

maritime strength and colonial and commercial enterprise, and you will

find she retains her superiority only because it is favourable to the

liberty of mankind. But you must not yet suffer the vision of modern

Europe to pass from your eyes without viewing some other results of the

efforts of men of genius, which, like those of gunpowder and the press,

illustrate the times to which they belong, and form brilliant epochs in

the history of the world. If you look back into the schools of

regenerated Italy, you will see in them the works of the Greek masters of

philosophy; and if you attend to the science taught in them, you will

find it vague, obscure, and full of erroneous notions. You will find in

this early period of improvement branches of philosophy even applied to

purposes of delusion; the most sublime of the departments of human

knowledge--astronomy--abused by impostors, who from the aspect of the

planetary world pretended to predict the fortunes and destinies of

individuals. You will see in the laboratories alchemists searching for a

universal medicine, an elixir of life, and for the philosopher's stone,

or a method of converting all metals into gold; but unexpected and useful

discoveries you will find, even in this age, arise amidst the clouds of

deception and the smoke of the furnace. Delusion and error vanish and

pass away, and truths seized upon by a few superior men become permanent,

and the property of an enlightening world. Amongst the personages who

belong to this early period, there are two whom I must request you to

notice--one an Englishman, who pointed out the paths to the discovery of

scientific truths, and the other a Tuscan, who afforded the happiest

experimental illustrations of the speculative views of his brother in

science. You will see academies formed a century later in Italy, France,

and Britain, in which the sciences are enlarged by new and varied

experiments, and the true system of the universe developed by an

illustrious Englishman taught and explained. The practical results of

the progress of physics, chemistry, and mechanics, are of the most

marvellous kind, and to make them all distinct would require a comparison

of ancient and modern states: ships that were moved by human labour in

the ancient world are transported by the winds; and a piece of steel,

touched by the magnet, points to the mariner his unerring course from the

old to the new world; and by the exertions of one man of genius, aided by

the resources of chemistry, a power, which by the old philosophers could

hardly have been imagined, has been generated and applied to almost all

the machinery of active life; the steam-engine performs not only the

labour of horses, but of man, by combinations which appear almost

possessed of intelligence; waggons are moved by it, constructions made,

vessels caused to perform voyages in opposition to wind and tide, and a

power placed in human hands which seems almost unlimited. To these novel

and still extending improvements may be added others, whish, though of a

secondary kind, yet materially affect the comforts of life, the

collecting from fossil materials the elements of combustion, and applying

them so as to illuminate, by a single operation, houses, streets, and

even cities. If you look to the results of chemical arts you will find

new substances of the most extraordinary nature applied to various novel

purposes; you will find a few experiments in electricity leading to the

marvellous result of disarming the thunder-cloud of its terrors, and you

will see new instruments created by human ingenuity, possessing the same

powers as the electrical organs of living animals. To whatever part of

the vision of modern times you cast your eyes you will find marks of

superiority and improvement, and I wish to impress upon you the

conviction that the results of intellectual labour or of scientific

genius are permanent and incapable of being lost. Monarchs change their

plans, governments their objects, a fleet or an army effect their purpose

and then pass away; but a piece of steel toached by the magnet preserves

its character for ever, and secures to man the dominion of the trackless

ocean. A new period of society may send armies from the shores of the

Baltic to those of the Euxine, and the empire of the followers of Mahomet

may be broken in pieces by a northern people, and the dominion of the

Britons in Asia may share the fate of that of Tamerlane or Zengiskhan;

but the steam-boat which ascends the Delaware or the St. Lawrence will be

continued to be used, and will carry the civilisation of an improved

people into the deserts of North America and into the wilds of Canada. In

the common history of the world, as compiled by authors in general,

almost all the great changes of nations are confounded with changes in

their dynasties, and events are usually referred either to sovereigns,

chiefs, heroes, or their armies, which do, in fact, originate from

entirely different causes, either of an intellectual or moral nature.

Governments depend far more than is generally supposed upon the opinion

of the people and the spirit of the age and nation. It sometimes happens

that a gigantic mind possesses supreme power and rises superior to the

age in which he is born, such was Alfred in England and Peter in Russia,

but such instances are very rare; and, in general, it is neither amongst

sovereigns nor the higher classes of society that the great improvers or

benefactors of mankind are to be found. The works of the most

illustrious names were little valued at the times when they were

produced, and their authors either despised or neglected; and great,

indeed, must have been the pure and abstract pleasure resulting from the

exertion of intellectual superiority and the discovery of truth and the

bestowing benefits and blessings upon society, which induced men to

sacrifice all their common enjoyments and all their privileges as

citizens to these exertions. Anaxagoras, Archimedes, Roger Bacon,

Galileo Galilei, in their deaths or their imprisonments, offer instances

of this kind, and nothing can be more striking than what appears to have

been the ingratitude of men towards their greatest benefactors; but

hereafter, when you understand more of the scheme of the universe, you

will see the cause and the effect of this, and you will find the whole

system governed by principles of immutable justice. I have said that in

the progress of society all great and real improvements are perpetuated;

the same corn which four thousand years ago was raised from an improved

grass by an inventor worshipped for two thousand years in the ancient

world under the name of Ceres, still forms the principal food of mankind;

and the potato, perhaps the greatest benefit that the Old has derived

from the New World, is spreading over Europe, and will continue to

nourish an extensive population when the name of the race by whom it was

first cultivated in South America is forgotten.

"I will now call your attention to some remarkable laws belonging to the

history of society, and from the consideration of which you will be able

gradually to develop the higher and more exalted principles of being.

There appears nothing more accidental than the sex of an infant, yet take

any great city or any province and you will find that the relations of

males and females are unalterable. Again, a part of the pure air of the

atmosphere is continually consumed in combustion and respiration; living

vegetables emit this principle during their growth; nothing appears more

accidental than the proportion of vegetable to animal life on the surface

of the earth, yet they are perfectly equivalent, and the balance of the

sexes, like the constitution of the atmosphere, depends upon the

principles of an unerring intelligence. You saw in the decline of the

Roman empire a people enfeebled by luxury, worn out by excess, overrun by

rude warriors; you saw the giants of the North and East mixing with the

pigmies of the South and West. An empire was destroyed, but the seeds of

moral and physical improvement in the new race were sown; the new

population resulting from the alliances of the men of the North with the

women, of the South was more vigorous, more full of physical power, and

more capable of intellectual exertion than their apparently ill-suited

progenitors; and the moral effects or final causes of the migration of

races, the plans of conquest and ambition which have led to revolutions

and changes of kingdoms designed by man for such different objects have

been the same in their ultimate results--that of improving by mixture the

different families of men. An Alaric or an Attila, who marches with

legions of barbarians for some gross view of plunder or ambition, is an

instrument of divine power to effect a purpose of which he is wholly

unconscious--he is carrying a strong race to improve a weak one, and

giving energy to a debilitated population; and the deserts he makes in

his passage will become in another age cultivated fields, and the

solitude he produces will be succeeded by a powerful and healthy

population. The results of these events in the moral and political world

may be compared to those produced in the vegetable kingdom by the storms

and heavy gales so usual at the vernal equinox, the time of the formation

of the seed; the pollen or farina of one flower is thrown upon the pistil

of another, and the crossing of varieties of plants so essential to the

perfection of the vegetable world produced. In man moral causes and

physical ones modify each other; the transmission of hereditary qualities

to offspring is distinct in the animal world, and in the case of

disposition to disease it is sufficiently obvious in the human being. But

it is likewise a general principle that powers or habits acquired by

cultivation are transmitted to the next generation and exalted or

perpetuated; the history of particular races of men affords distinct

proofs of this. The Caucasian stock has always preserved its

superiority, whilst the negro or flat-nosed race has always been marked

for want of intellectual power and capacity for the arts of life. This

last race, in fact, has never been cultivated, and a hundred generations,

successively improved, would be required to bring it to the state in

which the Caucasian race was at the time of the formation of the Greek

republics. The principle of the improvement of the character of races by

the transmission of hereditary qualities has not escaped the observations

of the legislators of the ancient people. By the divine law of Moses the

Israelites were enjoined to preserve the purity of their blood, and there

was no higher crime than that of forming alliances with the idolatrous

nations surrounding them. The Brahmins of Hindostan have established

upon the same principle the law of caste, by which certain professions

were made hereditary. In this warm climate, where labour is so

oppressive, to secure perfection in any series of operations it seems

essential to strengthen the powers by the forces acquired from this

principle of hereditary descent. It will at first perhaps strike your

mind that the mixing or blending of races is in direct opposition to this

principle of perfection; but here I must require you to pause and

consider the nature of the qualities belonging to the human being. Excess

of a particular power, which in itself is a perfection, becomes a defect;

the organs of touch may be so refined as to show a diseased sensibility;

the ear may become so exquisitely sensitive as to be more susceptible to

the uneasiness produced by discords than to the pleasures of harmony. In

the nations which have been long civilised the defects are generally

those dependent on excess of sensibility--defects which are cured in the

next generation by the strength and power belonging to a ruder tribe. In

looking back upon the vision of ancient history, you will find that there

never has been an instance of a migration to any extent of any race but

the Caucasian, and they have usually passed from the North to the South.

The negro race has always been driven before these conquerors of the

world; and the red men, the aborigines of America, are constantly

diminishing in number, and it is probable that in a few centuries more

their pure blood will be entirely extinct. In the population of the

world, the great object is evidently to produce organised frames most

capable of the happy and intellectual enjoyment of life--to raise man

above the mere animal state. To perpetuate the advantages of

civilisation, the races most capable of these advantages are preserved

and extended, and no considerable improvement made by an individual is

ever lost to society. You see living forms perpetuated in the series of

ages, and apparently the quantity of life increased. In comparing the

population of the globe as it now is with what it was centuries ago, you

would find it considerably greater; and if the quantity of life is

increased, the quantity of happiness, particularly that resulting from

the exercise of intellectual power, is increased in a still higher ratio.

Now, you will say, 'Is mind generated, is spiritual power created; or are

those results dependent upon the organisation of matter, upon new

perfections given to the machinery upon which thought and motion depend?'

I proclaim to you," said the Genius, raising his voice from its low and

sweet tone to one of ineffable majesty, "neither of these opinions is

true. Listen, whilst I reveal to you the mysteries of spiritual natures,

but I almost fear that with the mortal veil of your senses surrounding

you, these mysteries can never be made perfectly intelligible to your

mind. Spiritual natures are eternal and indivisible, but their modes of

being are as infinitely varied as the forms of matter. They have no

relation to space, and, in their transitions, no dependence upon time, so

that they can pass from one part of the universe to another by laws

entirely independent of their motion. The quantity, or the number of

spiritual essences, like the quantity or number of the atoms of the

material world, are always the same; but their arrangements, like those

of the materials which they are destined to guide or govern, are

infinitely diversified; they are, in fact, parts more or less inferior of

the infinite mind, and in the planetary systems, to one of which this

globe you inhabit belongs, are in a state of probation, continually

aiming at, and generally rising to a higher state of existence. Were it

permitted me to extend your vision to the fates of individual existences,

I could show you the same spirit, which in the form of Socrates developed

the foundations of moral and social virtue, in the Czar Peter possessed

of supreme power and enjoying exalted felicity in improving a rude

people. I could show you the monad or spirit, which with the organs of

Newton displayed an intelligence almost above humanity, now in a higher

and better state of planetary existence drinking intellectual light from

a purer source and approaching nearer to the infinite and divine Mind.

But prepare your mind, and you shall at least catch a glimpse of those

states which the highest intellectual beings that have belonged to the

earth enjoy after death in their transition to now and more exalted

natures." The voice ceased, and I appeared in a dark, deep, and cold

cave, of which the walls of the Colosaeum formed the boundary. From

above a bright and rosy light broke into this cave, so that whilst below

all was dark, above all was bright and illuminated with glory. I seemed

possessed at this moment of a new sense, and felt that the light brought

with it a genial warmth; odours like those of the most balmy flowers

appeared to fill the air, and the sweetest sounds of music absorbed my

sense of hearing; my limbs had a new lightness given to them, so that I

seemed to rise from the earth, and gradually mounted into the bright

luminous air, leaving behind me the dark and cold cavern, and the ruins

with which it was strewed. Language is inadequate to describe what I

felt in rising continually upwards through this bright and luminous

atmosphere. I had not, as is generally the case with persons in dreams

of this kind, imagined to myself wings; but I rose gradually and securely

as if I were myself a part of the ascending column of light. By degrees

this luminous atmosphere, which was diffused over the whole of space,

became more circumscribed, and extended only to a limited spot around me.

I saw through it the bright blue sky, the moon and stars, and I passed by

them as if it were in my power to touch them with my hand. I beheld

Jupiter and Saturn as they appear through our best telescopes, but still

more magnified, all the moons and belts of Jupiter being perfectly

distinct, and the double ring of Saturn appearing in that state in which

I have heard Herschel often express a wish he could see it. It seemed as

if I was on the verge of the solar system, and my moving sphere of light

now appeared to pause. I again heard the low and sweet voice of the

Genius, which said, "You are now on the verge of your own system: will

you go further, or return to the earth?" I replied, "I have left an

abode which is damp, dreary, dark and cold; I am now in a place where all

is life, light, and enjoyment; show me, at least before I return, the

glimpse which you promised me of those superior intellectual natures and

the modes of their being and their enjoyments." "There are creatures far

superior," said the Genius, "to any idea your imagination can form in

that part of the system now before you, comprehending Saturn, his moons

and rings. I will carry you to the verge of the immense atmosphere of

this planet. In that space you will see sufficient to wonder at, and far

more than with your present organisation it would be possible for me to

make you understand." I was again in motion, and again almost as

suddenly at rest. I saw below me a surface infinitely diversified,

something like that of an immense glacier covered with large columnar

masses, which appeared as if formed of glass, and from which were

suspended rounded forms of various sizes, which, if they had not been

transparent, I might have supposed to be fruit. From what appeared to me

to be analogous to masses of bright blue ice, streams of the richest tint

of rose-colour or purple burst forth and flowed into basins, forming

lakes or seas of the same colour. Looking through the atmosphere towards

the heavens, I saw brilliant opaque clouds of an azure colour that

reflected the light of the sun, which had to my eyes an entirely new

aspect, and appeared smaller, as if seen through a dense blue mist. I

saw moving on the surface below me immense masses, the forms of which I

find it impossible to describe; they had systems for locomotion similar

to those of the morse or sea-horse, but I saw with great surprise that

they moved from place to place by six extremely thin membranes, which

they used as wings. Their colours were varied and beautiful, but

principally azure and rose-colour. I saw numerous convolutions of tubes,

more analogous to the trunk of the elephant than to anything else I can

imagine, occupying what I supposed to be the upper parts of the body, and

my feeling of astonishment almost became one of disgust, from the

peculiar character of the organs of these singular beings; and it was

with a species of terror that I saw one of them mounting upwards,

apparently flying towards those opaque clouds which I have before

mentioned. "I know what your feelings are," said the Genius; "you want

analogies and all the elements of knowledge to comprehend the scene

before you. You are in the same state in which a fly would be whose

microscopic eye was changed for one similar to that of man; and you are

wholly unable to associate what you now see with your former knowledge.

But those beings who are before you, and who appear to you almost as

imperfect in their functions as the zoophytes of the Polar Sea, to which

they are not unlike in their apparent organisation to your eyes, have a

sphere of sensibility and intellectual enjoyment far superior to that of

the inhabitants of your earth. Each of those tubes which appears like

the trunk of an elephant is an organ of peculiar motion or sensation.

They have many modes of perception of which you are wholly ignorant, at

the same time that their sphere of vision is infinitely more extended

than yours, and their organs of touch far more perfect and exquisite. It

would be useless for me to attempt to explain their organisation, which

you could never understand; but of their intellectual objects of pursuit

I may perhaps give you some notion. They have used, modified, and

applied the material world in a manner analogous to man; but with far

superior powers they have gained superior results. Their atmosphere

being much denser than yours and the specific gravity of their planet

less, they have been enabled to determine the laws belonging to the solar

system with far more accuracy than you can possibly conceive, and any one

of those beings could show you what is now the situation and appearance

of your moon with a precision that would induce you to believe that he

saw it, though his knowledge is merely the result of calculation. Their

sources of pleasure are of the highest intellectual nature; with the

magnificent spectacle of their own rings and moons revolving round them,

with the various combinations required to understand and predict the

relations of these wonderful phenomena their minds are in unceasing

activity and this activity is a perpetual source of enjoyment. Your view

of the solar system is bounded by Uranus, and the laws of this planet

form the ultimatum of your mathematical results; but these beings catch a

sight of planets belonging to another system and even reason on the

phenomena presented by another sun. Those comets, of which your

astronomical history is so imperfect, are to them perfectly familiar, and

in their ephemerides their places are shown with as much accurateness as

those of Jupiter or Venus in your almanacks; the parallax of the fixed

stars nearest them is as well understood as that of their own sun, and

they possess a magnificent history of the changes taking place in the

heavens and which are governed by laws that it would be vain for me to

attempt to give you an idea of. They are acquainted with the revolutions

and uses of comets; they understand the system of those meteoric

formations of stones which have so much astonished you on earth; and they

have histories in which the gradual changes of nebulas in their progress

towards systems have been registered, so that they can predict their

future changes. And their astronomical records are not like yours which

go back only twenty centuries to the time of Hipparchus; they embrace a

period a hundred times as long, and their civil history for the same time

is as correct as their astronomical one. As I cannot describe to you the

organs of these wonderful beings, so neither can I show to you their

modes of life; but as their highest pleasures depend upon intellectual

pursuits, so you may conclude that those modes of life bear the strictest

analogy to that which on the earth you would call exalted virtue. I will

tell you however that they have no wars, and that the objects of their

ambition are entirely those of intellectual greatness, and that the only

passion that they feel in which comparisons with each other can be

instituted are those dependent upon a love of glory of the purest kind.

If I were to show you the different parts of the surface of this planet,

you would see marvellous results of the powers possessed by these highly

intellectual beings and of the wonderful manner in which they have

applied and modified matter. Those columnar masses, which seem to you as

if arising out of a mass of ice below, are results of art, and processes

are going on in them connected with the formation and perfection of their

food. The brilliant coloured fluids are the results of such operations

as on the earth would be performed in your laboratories, or more properly

in your refined culinary apparatus, for they are connected with their

system of nourishment. Those opaque azure clouds, to which you saw a few

minutes ago one of those beings directing his course, are works of art

and places in which they move through different regions of their

atmosphere and command the temperature and the quantity of light most

fitted for their philosophical researches, or most convenient for the

purposes of life. On the verge of the visible horizon which we perceive

around us, you may see in the east a very dark spot or shadow, in which

the light of the sun seems entirely absorbed; this is the border of an

immense mass of liquid analogous to your ocean, but unlike your sea it is

inhabited by a race of intellectual beings inferior indeed to those

belonging to the atmosphere of Saturn, but yet possessed of an extensive

range of sensations and endowed with extraordinary power and

intelligence. I could transport you to the different planets and show

you in each peculiar intellectual beings bearing analogies to each other,

but yet all different in power and essence. In Jupiter you would see

creatures similar to those in Saturn, but with different powers of

locomotion; in Mars and Venus you would find races of created forms more

analogous to those belonging to the earth; but in every part of the

planetary system you would find one character peculiar to all intelligent

natures, a sense of receiving impressions from light by various organs of

vision, and towards this result you cannot but perceive that all the

arrangements and motions of the planetary bodies, their satellites and

atmospheres are subservient. The spiritual natures therefore that pass

from system to system in progression towards power and knowledge preserve

at least this one invariable character, and their intellectual life may

be said to depend more or less upon the influence of light. As far as my

knowledge extends, even in other parts of the universe the more perfect

organised systems still possess this source of sensation and enjoyment;

but with higher natures, finer and more ethereal kinds of matter are

employed in organisation, substances that bear the same analogy to common

matter that the refined or most subtle gases do to common solids and

fluids. The universe is everywhere full of life, but the modes of this

life are infinitely diversified, and yet every form of it must be enjoyed

and known by every spiritual nature before the consummation of all

things. You have seen the comet moving with its immense train of light

through the sky; this likewise has a system supplied with living beings

and their existence derives its enjoyment from the diversity of

circumstances to which they are exposed; passing as it were through the

infinity of space they are continually gratified by the sight of new

systems and worlds, and you can imagine the unbounded nature of the

circle of their knowledge. My power extends so far as to afford you a

glimpse of the nature of a cometary world." I was again in rapid motion,

again passing with the utmost velocity through the bright blue sky, and I

saw Jupiter and his satellites and Saturn and his ring behind me, and

before me the sun, no longer appearing as through a blue mist but in

bright and unsupportable splendour, towards which I seemed moving with

the utmost velocity; in a limited sphere of vision, in a kind of red hazy

light similar to that which first broke in upon me in the Colosaeum, I

saw moving round me globes which appeared composed of different kinds of

flame and of different colours. In some of these globes I recognised

figures which put me in mind of the human countenance, but the

resemblance was so awful and unnatural that I endeavoured to withdraw my

view from them. "You are now," said the Genius, "in a cometary system;

those globes of light surrounding you are material forms, such as in one

of your systems of religious faith have been attributed to seraphs; they

live in that element which to you would be destruction; they communicate

by powers which would convert your organised frame into ashes; they are

now in the height of their enjoyment, being about to enter into the blaze

of the solar atmosphere. These beings so grand, so glorious, with

functions to you incomprehensible, once belonged to the earth; their

spiritual natures have risen through different stages of planetary life,

leaving their dust behind them, carrying with them only their

intellectual power. You ask me if they have any knowledge or

reminiscence of their transitions; tell me of your own recollections in

the womb of your mother and I will answer you. It is the law of divine

wisdom that no spirit carries with it into another state and being any

habit or mental qualities except those which may be connected with its

new wants or enjoyments; and knowledge relating to the earth would be no

more useful to these glorified beings than their earthly system of

organised dust, which would be instantly resolved into its ultimate atoms

at such a temperature; even on the earth the butterfly does not transport

with it into the air the organs or the appetites of the crawling worm

from which it sprung. There is, however, one sentiment or passion which

the monad or spiritual essence carries with it into all its stages of

being, and which in these happy and elevated creatures is continually

exalted; the love of knowledge or of intellectual power, which is, in

fact, in its ultimate and most perfect development the love of infinite

wisdom and unbounded power, or the love of God. Even in the imperfect

life that belongs to the earth this passion exists in a considerable

degree, increases even with age, outlives the perfection of the corporeal

faculties, and at the moment of death is felt by the conscious being, and

its future destinies depend upon the manner in which it has been

exercised and exalted. When it has been misapplied and assumed the forms

of vague curiosity, restless ambition, vain glory, pride or oppression,

the being is degraded, it sinks in the scale of existence and still

belongs to the earth or an inferior system, till its errors are corrected

by painful discipline. When, on the contrary, the love of intellectual

power has been exercised on its noblest objects, in discovering and in

contemplating the properties of created forms and in applying them to

useful and benevolent purposes, in developing and admiring the laws of

the eternal Intelligence, the destinies of the sentient principle are of

a nobler kind, it rises to a higher planetary world. From the height to

which you have been lifted I could carry you downwards and show you

intellectual natures even inferior to those belonging to the earth, in

your own moon and in the lower planets, and I could demonstrate to you

the effects of pain or moral evil in assisting in the great plan of the

exaltation of spiritual natures; but I will not destroy the brightness of

your present idea of the scheme of the universe by degrading pictures of

the effects of bad passions and of the manner in which evil is corrected

and destroyed. Your vision must end with the glorious view of the

inhabitants of the cometary worlds; I cannot show you the beings of the

system to which I, myself, belong, that of the sun; your organs would

perish before our brightness, and I am only permitted to be present to

you as a sound or intellectual voice. _We_ are likewise in progression,

but we see and know something of the plans of infinite wisdom; we feel

the personal presence of that supreme Deity which you only imagine; to

you belongs faith, to us knowledge; and our greatest delight results from

the conviction that we are lights kindled by His light and that we belong

to His substance. To obey, to love, to wonder and adore, form our

relations to the infinite Intelligence. We feel His laws are those of

eternal justice and that they govern all things from the most glorious

intellectual natures belonging to the sun and fixed stars to the meanest

spark of life animating an atom crawling in the dust of your earth. We

know all things begin from and end in His everlasting essence, the cause

of causes, the power of powers."

The low and sweet voice ceased; it appeared as if I had fallen suddenly

upon the earth, but there was a bright light before me and I heard my

name loudly called; the voice was not of my intellectual guide--the

genius before me was my servant bearing a flambeau in his hand. He told

me he had been searching me in vain amongst the ruins, that the carriage

had been waiting for me above an hour, and that he had left a large party

of my friends assembled in the Palazzo F---.

DIALOGUE THE SECOND. DISCUSSIONS CONNECTED WITH THE VISION IN THE

COLOSAEUM.

The same friends, Ambrosio and Onuphrio, who were my companions at Rome

in the winter, accompanied me in the spring to Naples. Many

conversations occurred in the course of our journey which were often to

me peculiarly instructive, and from the difference of their opinions

generally animated and often entertaining. I shall detail one of these

conversations, which took place in the evening on the summit of Vesuvius,

and the remembrance of which from its connection with my vision in the

Colosaeum has always a peculiar interest for me. We had reached with

some labour the edge of the crater and were admiring the wonderful scene

around us. I shall give the conversation in the words of the persons of

the drama.

_Philalethes_.--It is difficult to say whether there is more of sublimity

or beauty in the scene around us. Nature appears at once smiling and

frowning, in activity and repose. How tremendous is the volcano, how

magnificent this great laboratory of Nature in its unceasing fire, its

subterraneous lightnings and thunder, its volumes of smoke, its showers

of stones and its rivers of ignited lava! How contrasted the darkness of

the scoriae, the ruins and the desolation round the crater with the scene

below! There we see the rich field covered with flax, or maize, or

millet, and intersected by rows of trees which support the green and

graceful festoons of the vine; the orange and lemon tree covered with

golden fruit appear in the sheltered glens; the olive trees cover the

lower hills; islands purple in the beams of the setting sun are scattered

over the sea in the west, and the sky is tinted with red softening into

the brightest and purest azure; the distant mountains still retain a part

of the snows of winter, but they are rapidly melting and they absolutely

seem to melt reflecting the beams of the setting sun, glowing as if on

fire. And man appears emulous of Nature, for the city below is full of

activity; the nearest part of the bay is covered with boats, busy

multitudes crowd the strand, and at the same time may be seen a number of

the arts belonging to civilised society in operation--house-building,

ship-building, rope-making, the manipulations of the smith and of the

agriculturist, and not only the useful arts, but even the amusements and

luxuries of a great metropolis may be witnessed from the spot in which we

stand; that motley crowd is collected round a policinello, and those

smaller groups that surround the stalls are employed in enjoying the

favourite food and drink of the lazzaroni.

_Ambrosio_.--We see not only the power and activity of man, as existing

at present, and of which the highest example may be represented by the

steam-boat which is now departing for Palermo, but we may likewise view

scenes which carry us into the very bosom of antiquity, and, as it were,

make us live with the generations of past ages. Those small square

buildings, scarcely visible in the distance, are the tombs of

distinguished men amongst the early Greek colonists of the country; and

those rows of houses, without roofs, which appear as if newly erecting,

constitute a Roman town restored from its ashes, that remained for

centuries as if it had been swept from the face of the earth. When you

study it in detail you will hardly avoid the illusion that it is a rising

city; you will almost be tempted to ask where are the workmen, so perfect

art the walls of the houses, so bright and uninjured the painting upon

them. Hardly anything is wanting to make this scene a magnificent

epitome of all that is most worthy of admiration in Nature and art; had

there been in addition to the other objects a fine river and a waterfall

the epitome would, I think, have been absolutely perfect.

_Phil_.--You are most unreasonable in imagining additions to a scene

which it is impossible to embrace in one view, and which presents so many

objects to the senses, the memory, and to the imagination; yet there is a

river in the valley between Naples and Castel del Mare; you may see its

silver thread and the white foam of its torrents in the distance, and if

you were geologists you would find a number of sources of interest, which

have not been mentioned, in the scenery surrounding us. Somma which is

before us, for instance, affords a wonderful example of a mountain formed

of marine deposits, and which has been raised by subterraneous fire, and

those large and singular veins which you see at the base and rising

through the substance of the strata are composed of volcanic porphyry,

and offer a most striking and beautiful example of the generation and

structure of rocks and mineral formations.

_Onuphrio_.--As we passed through Portici, on the road to the base of

Vesuvius, it appeared to me that I saw a stone which had an ancient Roman

inscription upon it, and which occupied the place of a portal in the

modern palace of the Barberini.

_Phil_.--This is not an uncommon circumstance: Most of the stones used in

the palaces of Portici had been employed more than two thousand years

before in structures raised by the ancient Romans or Greek colonists; and

it is not a little remarkable that the buildings of Herculaneum, a town

covered with ashes, tufa, and lava, from the first recorded eruption of

Vesuvius more than seventeen hundred years ago, should have been

constructed of volcanic materials produced by some antecedent igneous

action of the mountain in times beyond the reach of history; and it is

still more remarkable that men should have gone on for so many ages

making erections in spots where their works have been so often destroyed,

inattentive to the voice of time or the warnings of nature.

_Onu_.--This last fact recalls to my recollection an idea which

Philalethes started in the remarkable dream which he would have us

believe occurred to him in the Colosaeum, namely--that no important facts

which can be useful to society are ever lost; and that, like these

stones, which though covered with ashes or hidden amongst ruins, they are

sure to be brought forward again and made use of in some new form.

_Amb_.--I do not see the justness of the analogy to which Onuphrio

refers; but there are many parts of that vision on which I should wish to

hear the explanations of Philalethes. I consider it in fact as a sort of

poetical epitome of his philosophical opinions, and I regard this vision

or dream as a mere web of his imagination in which he intended to catch

us, his summer-flies and travelling companions.

_Phil_.--There, Ambrosio, you do me wrong. I will acknowledge, if you

please, that the vision in the Colosaeum is a fiction; but the most

important parts of it really occurred to me in sleep, particularly that

in which I seemed to leave the earth and launch into the infinity of

space under the guidance of a tutelary genius. And the origin and

progress of civil society form likewise parts of another dream which I

had many years ago, and it was in the reverie which happened when you

quitted me in the Colosaeum that I wove all these thoughts together, and

gave them the form in which I narrated them to you.

_Amb_.--Of course we may consider them as an accurate representation of

your waking thoughts.

_Phil_.--I do not say that they strictly are so, for I am not quite

convinced that dreams are always representations of the state of the mind

modified by organic diseases or by associations. There are certainly no

absolutely new ideas produced in sleep, yet I have had more than one

instance, in the course of my life, of most extraordinary combinations

occurring in this state, which have had considerable influence on my

feelings, my imagination, and my health.

_Onu_.--Why Philalethes, you are becoming a visionary, a dreamer of

dreams. We shall perhaps set you down by the side of Jacob Behmen or of

Emanuel Swedenbourg, and in an earlier age you might have been a prophet,

and have ranked perhaps with Mahomet. But pray give us one of these

instances in which such a marvellous influence was produced on your

imagination and your health by a dream that we may form some judgment of

the nature of your second sight or inspirations; and whether they have

any foundation, or whether they are not, as I believe, really unfounded,

inventions of the fancy, dreams respecting dreams.

_Phil_.--I anticipate unbelief, and I expose myself to your ridicule in

the statement I am about to make, yet I shall mention nothing but a

simple fact. Almost a quarter of a century ago, as you know, I

contracted that terrible form of typhus-fever known by the name of gaol-

fever, I may say, not from any imprudence of my own, but whilst engaged

in putting in execution a plan for ventilating one of the great prisons

of the metropolis. My illness was severe and dangerous. As long as the

fever continued, my dreams or delirium were most painful and oppressive;

but when the weakness consequent to exhaustion came on, and when the

probability of death seemed to my physicians greater than that of life,

there was an entire change in all my ideal combinations. I remained in

an apparently senseless or lethargic state, but in fact my mind was

peculiarly active; there was always before me the form of a beautiful

woman, with whom I was engaged in the most interesting and intellectual

conversation.

_Amb_.--The figure of a lady with whom you were in love.

_Phil_.--No such thing; I was passionately in love at the time, but the

object of my admiration was a lady with black hair, dark eyes, and pale

complexion; this spirit of my vision, on the contrary, had brown hair,

blue eyes, and a bright rosy complexion, and was, as far as I can

recollect, unlike any of the amatory forms which in early youth had so

often haunted my imagination. Her figure for many days was so distinct

in my mind, as to form almost a visual image. As I gained strength, the

visits of my good angel (for so I called it) became less frequent, and

when I was restored to health they were altogether discontinued.

_Onu_.--I see nothing very strange in this--a mere reaction of the mind

after severe pain--and, to a young man of twenty-five, there are few more

pleasurable images than that of a beautiful maiden with blue eyes,

blooming cheeks, and long nut-brown hair.

_Phil_.--But all my feelings and all my conversations with this visionary

maiden were of an intellectual and refined nature.

_Onu_.--Yes, I suppose, as long as you were ill.

_Phil_.--I will not allow you to treat me with ridicule on this point

till you have heard the second part of my tale. Ten years after I had

recovered from the fever, and when I had almost lost the recollection of

the vision, it was recalled to my memory by a very blooming and graceful

maiden, fourteen or fifteen years old, that I accidentally met during my

travels in Illyria; but I cannot say that the impression made upon my

mind by this female was very strong. Now comes the extraordinary part of

the narrative. Ten years after, twenty years after my first illness, at

a time when I was exceedingly weak from a severe and dangerous malady,

which for many weeks threatened my life, and when my mind was almost in a

desponding state, being in a course of travels ordered by my medical

advisers, I again met the person who was the representative of my

visionary female, and to her kindness and care I believe I owe what

remains to me of existence. My despondency gradually disappeared, and

though my health still continued weak, life began to possess charms for

me which I had thought were for ever gone; and I could not help

identifying the living angel with the vision which appeared as my

guardian genius during the illness of my youth.

_Onu_.--I really see nothing at all in this fact, whether the first or

the second part of the narrative be considered, beyond the influence of

an imagination excited by disease. From youth, even to age, women are

our guardian angels, our comforters; and I dare say any other handsome

young female, who had been your nurse in your last illness, would have

coincided with your remembrance of the vision, even though her eyes had

been hazel and her hair flaxen. Nothing can be more loose than the

images represented in dreams following a fever, and with the nervous

susceptibility produced by your last illness, almost any agreeable form

would have become the representative of your imaginary guardian genius.

Thus it is, that by the power of fancy, material forms are clothed in

supernatural attributes; and in the same manner imaginary divinities have

all the forms of mortality bestowed upon them. The gods of the pagan

mythology were in all their characters and attributes exalted human

beings; the demon of the coward, and the angelic form that appears in the

dream of some maid smitten by devotion, and who, having lost her earthly

lover, fixes her thoughts on heaven, are clothed in the character and

vestments of humanity changed by the dreaminess of passion.

_Amb_.--With such a tendency, Philalethes, as you have shown to believe

in something like a supernatural or divine influence on the human mind, I

am astonished there should be so much scepticism belonging to your vision

in the Colosaeum. And your view of the early state of man, after his

first creation, is not only incompatible with revelation, but likewise

with reason and everything that we know respecting the history or

traditions of the early nations of antiquity.

_Phil_.--Be more distinct and detailed in your statements, Ambrosio, that

I may be able to reply to them; and whilst we are waiting for the sunrise

we may discuss the subject, and for this, let us seat ourselves on these

stones, where we shall be warmed by the vicinity of the current of lava.

_Amb_.--You consider man, in his early or first created state, a savage,

like those who now inhabit New Holland or New Zealand, acquiring by the

little use that they make of a feeble reason the power of supporting and

extending life. Now, I contend, that if man had been so created, he must

inevitably have been destroyed by the elements or devoured by savage

beasts, so infinitely his superiors in physical force. He must,

therefore, have been formed with various instinctive faculties and

propensities, with a perfection of form and use of organs fitting him to

become the master of the earth; and, it appears to me, that the account

given in Genesis of the first parents of mankind having been placed in a

garden fitted with everything necessary to their existence and enjoyment,

and ordered to increase and multiply there, is strictly in harmony with

reason, and accordant with all just metaphysical views of the human mind.

Man as he now exists can only be raised with great care and difficulty

from the infant to the mature state; all his motions are at first

automatic, and become voluntary by association; he has to learn

everything by slow and difficult processes, many months elapse before he

is able to stand, and many years before he is able to provide for the

common wants of life. Without the mother or the nurse in his infant

state, he would die in a few hours; and without the laborious discipline

of instruction and example, he would remain idiotic and inferior to most

other animals. His reason is only acquired gradually, and when in its

highest perfection is often uncertain in its results. He must,

therefore, have been created with instincts that for a long while

supplied the want of reason, and which enabled him from the first moment

of his existence to provide for his wants, to gratify his desires, and

enjoy the power and the activity of life.

_Phil_.--I acknowledge that your objection has some weight, but not so

much as you would attribute to it. I will suppose that the first created

man or men had certain powers or instincts, such as now belong to the

rudest savages of the southern hemisphere; I will suppose them created

with the use of their organs for defence and offence and with passions

and propensities enabling them to supply their own wants. And I oppose

the fact of races who are now actually in this state to your vague

historical or traditionary records; and their gradual progress or

improvement from this early state of society to that of the highest state

of civilisation or refinement may, I think, be easily deduced from the

exertions of reason assisted by the influence of the moral powers and of

physical circumstances. Accident, I conceive, must have had some

influence in laying the foundations of certain arts; and a climate in

which labour was not too oppressive, and in which the exertion of

industry was required to provide for the wants of life must have fixed

the character of the activity of the early improving people; where nature

is too kind a mother, man is generally a spoiled child; where she is

severe, and a stepmother, his powers are usually withered and destroyed.

The people of the south and the north and those between the tropics

offer, even at this day, proof of the truth of this principle; and it is

even possible now to find on the surface of the earth, all the different

gradations of the states of society, from that in which man is scarcely

removed above the brute, to that in which he appears approaching in his

nature to a divine intelligence. Besides, reason being the noblest gift

of God to man, I can hardly suppose that an infinitely powerful and all-

wise Creator would bestow upon the early inhabitants of the globe a

greater proportion of instinct than was at first necessary to preserve

their existence, and that he would not leave the great progress of their

improvement to the development and exaltation of their reasoning powers.

_Amb_.--You appear to me in your argument to have forgotten the influence

that any civilised race must possess over savages; and many of the

nations which you consider as in their original state, may have descended

from nations formerly civilised; and, it is quite as easy to trace the

retrograde steps of a people as their advances; the savage hordes who now

inhabit the northern coast of Africa are probably descended from the

opulent, commercial, and ingenious Carthaginians who once contended with

Rome for the empire of the world; and even nearer home, we might find in

Southern Italy and her islands, proofs of a degradation not much

inferior. What I contend for is the civilisation of the first

patriarchal races who peopled the East, and who passed into Europe from

Armenia, in which paradise is supposed to have been placed. The early

civilisation of this race could only have been in consequence of their

powers and instincts having been of a higher character than those of

savages. They appear to have been small families--a state not at all

fitted for the discovery of arts by the exercise of the mind; and they

professed the most sublime form of religion, the worship of one Supreme

Intelligence--a truth which, after a thousand years of civilisation, was

with difficulty attained by the most powerful efforts of reasoning by the

Greek sages. It appears to me, that in the history of the Jews, nothing

can be more in conformity to our ideas of just analogy than this series

of events. Our first parents were created with everything necessary for

their wants and their happiness; they had only one duty to perform, by

their obedience to prove their love and devotion to their Creator. In

this they failed, and death--or the fear of death--became a curse upon

their race; but the father of mankind repented, and his instinctive or

intellectual powers given by revelation were transmitted to his offspring

more or less modified by their reason, which they had gained as the fruit

of their disobedience. One branch of his offspring, however, in whom

faith shone forth above reason, retained their peculiar powers and

institutions and preserved the worship of Jehovah pure, whilst many of

the races sprung from their brethren became idolatrous, and the clear

light of heaven was lost through the mist of the senses; and that Being,

worshipped by the Israelites only as a mysterious word, was forgotten by

many of the nations who lived in the neighbouring countries, and men,

beasts, the parts of the visible universe, and even stocks and stones,

were set up as objects of adoration. The difficulty which the divine

legislators of the Jewish people had to preserve the purity of their

religion amongst the idolatrous nations by whom they were surrounded,

proves the natural evil tendency of the human mind after the fall of man.

And, whoever will consider the nature of the Mosaical or ceremonial law

and the manner in which it was suspended before the end of the Roman

Empire, the expiatory sacrifice of the Messiah, the fear of death

destroyed by the blessed hopes of immortality established by the

resurrection of Jesus Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and

the triumphs of Christianity over paganism in the time of Constantine,

can I think, hardly fail to acknowledge the reasonableness of the truth

of revealed religion as founded upon the early history of man; and

whoever acknowledges this reasonableness and this truth, must I think be

dissatisfied with the view which Philalethes or his genius has given of

the progress of society, and will find in it one instance, amongst many

others that might be discovered, of the vague and erring results of his

so much boasted human reason.

_Onu_.--I fear I shall shock Ambrosio, but I cannot help vindicating a

little the philosophical results of human reason, which it must be

allowed are entirely hostile to his ideas. I agree with Philalethes that

it is the noblest gift of God to man; and I cannot think that Ambrosio's

view of the paradisaical condition and the fall of man and the progress

of society is at all in conformity with the ideas we ought to form of the

institutions of an infinitely wise and powerful Being. Besides, Ambrosio

speaks of the reasonableness of his own opinions; of course his notions

of reason must be different from mine, or we have adopted different forms

of logic. I do not find in the biblical history any idea of the supreme

Intelligence conformable to those of the Greek philosophers; on the

contrary, I find Jehovah everywhere described as a powerful material

being, endowed with organs, feelings, and passions similar to those of a

great and exalted human agent. He is described as making man in His own

image, as walking in the garden in the cool of the evening, as being

pleased with sacrificial offerings, as angry with Adam and Eve, as

personally cursing Cain for his crime of fratricide, and even as

providing our first parents with garments to hide their nakedness; then

He appears a material form in the midst of flames, thunder and lightning,

and was regarded by the Levites as having a fixed residence in the Ark.

He is contrasted throughout the whole of the Old Testament with the gods

of the heathens, only as being more powerful; and in the strange scene

which took place in Pharaoh's court He seemed to have measured His

abilities with those of certain seers or magicians, and to have proved

His superiority only by producing greater and more tremendous plagues. In

all the early history of the Jewish nation there is no conception

approaching to the sublimity of that of Anaxagoras, who called God the

Intelligence or [Greek text]. He appears always, on the contrary, like

the genii of Arabian romance, living in clouds, descending on mountains,

urging His chosen people to commit the most atrocious crimes, to destroy

all the races not professing the same worship, and to exterminate even

the child and the unborn infant. Then, I find in the Old Testament no

promise of a spiritual Messiah, but only of a temporal king, who, as the

Jews believe, is yet to come. The serpent in Genesis has no connection

with the spirit of evil, but is described only as the most subtle beast

of the field, and, having injured man, there was to be a perpetual enmity

between their races--the serpent when able was to bite the heel of the

man, and the man when an opportunity occurred was to bruise the head of

the serpent. I will allow, if you please, that an instinct of religion

or superstition belongs to the human mind, and that the different forms

which this instinct assumes depend upon various circumstances and

accidents of history and climate; but I am not sure that the religion of

the Jews was superior to that of the Sabaeans who worshipped the stars,

or the ancient Persians who adored the sun as the visible symbol of

divine power, or the eastern nations who in the various forms of the

visible universe worshipped the powers and energies of the Divinity. I

feel like the ancient Romans with respect to toleration; I would give a

place to all the gods in my Pantheon, but I would not allow the followers

of Brahmah or of Christ to quarrel about the modes of incarnation or the

superiority of the attributes of their trien God.

_Amb_.--You have mistaken me, Onuphrio, if you think I am shocked by your

opinions; I have seen too much of the wanderings of human reason ever to

be surprised by them, and the views you have adopted are not uncommon

amongst young men of very superior talents, who have only slightly

examined the evidences of revealed religion. But I am glad to find that

you have not adopted the code of infidelity of many of the French

revolutionists and of an English school of sceptics, who find in the

ancient astronomy all the germs of the worship of the Hebrews, who

identify the labours of Hercules with those of the Jewish heroes, and who

find the life, death and resurrection of the Messiah in the history of

the solar day. You, at least, allow the existence of a peculiar

religious instinct, or, as you are pleased to call it, superstition,

belonging to the human mind, and I have hopes that upon this foundation

you will ultimately build up a system of faith not unworthy a philosopher

and a Christian. Man, with whatever religious instincts he was created,

was intended to communicate with the visible universe by sensations and

act upon it by his organs, and in the earliest state of society he was

more particularly influenced by his gross senses. Allowing the existence

of a supreme Intelligence and His beneficent intentions towards man, the

ideas of His presence which He might think fit to impress upon the mind,

either for the purpose of veneration, or of love, of hope or fear, must

have been in harmony with the general train of His sensations--I am not

sure that I make myself intelligible. The same infinite power which in

an instant could create a universe, could of course so modify the ideas

of an intellectual being as to give them that form and character most

fitted for his existence; and I suppose in the early state of created man

he imagined that he enjoyed the actual presence of the Divinity and heard

His voice. I take this to be the first and simplest result of religious

instinct. In early times amongst the patriarchs I suppose these ideas

were so vivid as to be confounded with impressions; but as religious

instinct probably became feebler in their posterity, the vividness of the

impressions diminished, and they then became visions or dreams, which

with the prophets seem to have constituted inspiration. I do not suppose

that the Supreme Being ever made Himself known to man by a real change in

the order of Nature, but that the sensations of men were so modified by

their instincts as to induce the belief in His presence. That there was

a divine intelligence continually acting upon the race of Seth as his

chosen people, is, I think, clearly proved by the events of their

history, and also that the early opinions of a small tribe in Judaea were

designed for the foundation of the religion of the most active and

civilised and powerful nations of the world, and that after a lapse of

three thousand years. The manner in which Christianity spread over the

world with a few obscure mechanics or fishermen for its promulgators; the

mode in which it triumphed over paganism even when professed and

supported by the power and philosophy of a Julian; the martyrs who

subscribed to the truth of Christianity by shedding their blood for the

faith; the exalted nature of those intellectual men by whom it has been

professed who had examined all the depths of nature and exercised the

profoundest faculties of thought, such as Newton, Locke, and Hartley, all

appear to me strong arguments in favour of revealed religion. I prefer

rather founding my creed upon the fitness of its doctrines than upon

historical evidences or the nature of its miracles. The Divine

Intelligence chooses that men should be convinced according to the

ordinary train of their sensations, and on all occasions it appears to me

more natural that a change should take place in the human mind than in

the order of nature. The popular opinion of the people of Judaea was

that certain diseases were occasioned by devils taking possession of a

human being; the disease was cured by our Saviour, and this in the Gospel

is expressed by his casting out devils. But without entering into

explanations respecting the historical miracles belonging to

Christianity, it is sufficient to say that its truth is attested by a

constantly existing miracle, the present state of the Jews, which was

predicted by Jesus; their temple and city were destroyed, and all

attempts made to rebuild it have been vain, and they remain the despised

and outcasts of the world.

_Onu_.--But you have not answered my objections with respect to the

cruelties exercised by the Jews under the command of Jehovah, which

appear to me in opposition to all our views of divine justice.

_Amb_.--I think even Philalethes will allow that physical and moral

diseases are hereditary, and that to destroy a pernicious unbelief or

demoniacal worship it was necessary to destroy the whole race root and

branch. As an example, I will imagine a certain contagions disease which

is transmitted by parents to children, and which, like the plague, is

communicated to sound persons by contact; to destroy a family of men who

would spread this disease over the whole earth would unquestionably be a

mercy. Besides, I believe in the immortality of the sentient principle

in man; destruction of life is only a change of existence, and supposing

the new existence a superior one it is a gain. To the Supreme

Intelligence the death of a million of human beings is the mere

circumstance of so many spiritual essences changing their habitations,

and is analogous to the myriad millions of larvae that leave their coats

and shells behind them and rise into the atmosphere, as flies in a summer

day. When man measures the works of the Divine Mind by his own feeble

combinations, he must wander in gross error; the infinite can never be

understood by the finite.

_Onu_.--As far as I can comprehend your reasoning, the priests of

Juggernaut might make the same defence for their idol, and find in such

views a fair apology for the destruction of thousands of voluntary

victims crushed to pieces by the feet of the sacred elephant.

_Amb_.--Undoubtedly they might, and I should allow the justness of their

defence if I saw in their religion any germs of a divine institution

fitted to become, like the religion of Jehovah, the faith of the whole

civilised world, embracing the most perfect form of theism and the most

refined and exalted morality. I consider the early acts of the Jewish

nation as the lowest and rudest steps of a temple raised by the Supreme

Being to contain the altar of sacrifice to His glory. In the early

periods of society rude and uncultivated men could only be acted upon by

gross and temporal rewards and punishments; severe rites and heavy

discipline were required to keep the mind in order, and the punishment of

the idolatrous nation served as an example for the Jews. When

Christianity took the place of Judaism the ideas of the Supreme Being

became more pure and abstracted, and the visible attributes of Jehovah

and His angels appear to have been less frequently presented to the mind;

yet even for many ages it seemed as if the grossness of our material

senses required some assistance from the eye in fixing or perpetuating

the character of religious instinct, and the Church to which I belong,

and I may say the whole Christian Church in early times, allowed visible

images, pictures, statues, and relics as the means of awakening the

stronger devotional feelings. We have been accused of worshipping merely

inanimate objects, but this is a very false notion of the nature of our

faith; we regard them merely as vivid characters representing spiritual

existences and we no more worship them than the Protestant does his Bible

when he kisses it under a solemn religious adjuration. The past, the

present, and the future being the same to the infinite and divine

Intelligence, and man being created in love for the purposes of

happiness, the moral and religious discipline to which he was submitted

was in strict conformity to his progressive faculties and to the primary

laws of his nature. It is but a rude analogy, yet it is the only one I

can find, that of comparing the Supreme Being to a wise and good father

who, to secure the well-being of his offspring, is obliged to adopt a

system of rewards and punishments in which the senses at first and

afterwards the imagination and reason are concerned; he terrifies them by

the example of others, awakens their love of glory by pointing out the

distinction and the happiness gained by superior men by adopting a

particular line of conduct; he uses at first the rod, and gradually

substitutes for it the fear of immediate shame; and having awakened the

fear of shame and the love of praise or honour with respect to temporary

and immediate actions he extends them to the conduct of the whole of

life, and makes what was a momentary feeling a permanent and immutable

principle. And obedience in the child to the will of such a parent may

be compared to faith in and obedience to the will of the Supreme Being;

and a wayward and disobedient child who reasons upon and doubts the

utility of the discipline of such a father is much in the same state in

which the adult man is who doubts if there be good in the decrees of

Providence and who questions the harmony of the plan of the moral

universe.

_Onu_.--Allowing the perfection of your moral scheme of religion and its

fitness for the nature of man, I find it impossible to believe the

primary doctrines on which this scheme is founded. You make the Divine

Mind, the creator of infinite worlds, enter into the form of a man born

of a virgin, you make the eternal and immortal God the victim of shameful

punishment and suffering death on the cross, recovering His life after

three days, and carrying His maimed and lacerated body into the heaven of

heavens.

_Amb_.--You, like all other sceptics, make your own interpretations of

the Scriptures and set up a standard for divine power in human reason.

The infinite and eternal mind, as I said before, fits the doctrines of

religion to the minds by which they are to be embraced. I see no

improbability in the idea that an integrant part of His essence may have

animated a human form; there can be no doubt that this belief has existed

in the human mind, and the belief constitutes the vital part of the

religion. We know nothing of the generation of the human being in the

ordinary course of nature; how absurd then to attempt to reason upon the

acts of the Divine Mind! nor is there more difficulty in imagining the

event of a divine conception than of a divine creation. To God the

infinite, little and great, as measured by human powers, are equal; a

creature of this earth, however humble and insignificant, may have the

same weight with millions of superior beings inhabiting higher systems.

But I consider all the miraculous parts of our religion as effected by

changes in the sensations or ideas of the human mind, and not by physical

changes in the order of nature; a man who has to repair a piece of

machinery, as a clock, must take it to pieces, and, in fact, re-make it,

but to infinite wisdom and power a change in the intellectual state of

the human being may be the result of a momentary will, and the mere act

of faith may produce the change. How great the powers of imagination

are, even in ordinary life, is shown by many striking facts, and nothing

seems impossible to this imagination when acted upon by divine influence.

To attempt to answer all the objections which may be derived from the

want of conformity in the doctrines of Christianity to the usual order of

events would be an interminable labour. My first principle is, that

religion has nothing to do with the common order of events; it is a pure

and divine instinct intended to give results to man which he cannot

obtain by the common use of his reason, and which at first view often

appear contradictory to it, but which when examined by the most refined

tests, and considered in the most extensive and profound relations, are,

in fact, in conformity with the most exalted intellectual knowledge, so

that, indeed, the results of pure reason ultimately become the same with

those of faith--the tree of knowledge is grafted upon the tree of life,

and that fruit which brought the fear of death into the world, budding on

an immortal stock, becomes the fruit of the promise of immortality.

_Onu_.--You derive Christianity from Judaism; I cannot see their

connection, and it appears to me that the religion of Mahomet is more

naturally a scion from the stock of Moses. Christ was a Jew, and was

circumcised; this rite was continued by Mahomet, and is to this day

adopted by his disciples, though rejected by the Christians; and the

doctrines of Mahomet appear to me to have a higher claim to divine origin

than those of Jesus; his morality is as pure, his theism purer, and his

system of rewards and punishments after death as much in conformity with

our ideas of eternal justice.

_Amb_.--I will willingly make the decision of the general question

dependent upon the decision of this particular one. No attempts have

been made by the Mahometans to find any predictions respecting their

founder in the Old Testament, and they have never pretended even that he

was the Messiah; therefore, as far as prophecy is concerned, there is no

ground for admitting the truth of the religion of Mahomet. It has been

the fashion with a particular sect of infidels to praise the morality of

the Mahometans, but I think unjustly; they are said to be honest in their

dealings and charitable to those of their own persuasion; but they allow

polygamy and a plurality of women, and are despisers and persecutors of

the nations professing a different faith. And what a contrast does this

morality present to that of the Gospel which inculcates charity to all

mankind, and orders benevolent actions to be performed even to enemies!

and the purity and simplicity of the infant is held up by Christ as the

model of imitation for His followers. Then, in the rewards and

punishments of the future state of the Mahometans, how gross are all the

ideas, how unlike the promises of a divine and spiritual being; their

paradise is a mere earthly garden of sensual pleasure, and their Houris

represent the ladies of their own harems rather than glorified angelic

natures. How different is the Christian heaven, how sublime in its idea,

indefinite, yet well suited to a being of intellectual and progressive

faculties; "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into

the heart of man to conceive the joys that He hath prepared for those who

love Him."

_Onu_.--I confess your answer to my last argument is a triumphant one;

but I cannot allow a question of such extent and of such a variety of

bearings to be decided by so slight an advantage as that which you have

gained by this answer. I will now offer another difficulty to you. The

law of the Jews, you will allow, was established by God Himself and

delivered to Moses from the seat of His glory amongst storms, thunder,

and lightnings, on Mount Sinai; why should this law, if pure and divine,

have been overturned by the same Being who established it? And all the

ceremonies of the Hebrews have been abolished by the first Christians.

_Amb_.--I deny that the divine law of Moses was abolished by Christ, who

Himself says, "I came to confirm the law, not to destroy it." And the

Ten Commandments form the vital parts of the foundation of the creed of

the true Christian. It appears that the religion of Christ was the same

pure theism with that of the patriarchs; and the rites and ceremonies

established by Moses seem to have been only adjuncts to the spiritual

religion intended to suit a particular climate and a particular state of

the Jewish nation, rather a dress or clothing of the religion than

forming a constituent part of it, a system of discipline of life and

manners rather than an essential part of doctrine. The rites of

circumcision and ablution were necessary to the health and perhaps even

to the existence of a people living on the hottest part of the shores of

the Mediterranean. And in the sacrifices made of the first fruits and of

the chosen of the flock, we may see a design not merely connected with

the religious faith of the people but even with their political economy.

To offer their choicest and best property as a proof of their gratitude

to the Supreme Being was a kind of test of devotedness and obedience to

the theocracy; and these sacrifices by obliging them to raise more

produce and provide more cattle than were essential to their ordinary

support, preserved them from the danger of famine, as in case of a dearth

it was easy for the priests under the divine permission to apply those

offerings to the necessities of the people. All the pure parts of the

faith which had descended from Abraham to David were preserved by Jesus

Christ; but the ceremonial religion was fitted only for a particular

nation and a particular country; Christianity, on the contrary, was to be

the religion of the world and of a civilised and improving world. And it

appears to me to be an additional proof of its divine nature and origin,

that it is exactly in conformity to the principles of the improvement and

perfection of the human mind. When given to a particular race fixed in a

peculiar climate, its objects were sensible, its discipline was severe,

and its rites and ceremonies numerous and imposing, fitted to act upon

weak, ignorant, and consequently obstinate men. In its gradual

development it threw off its local character and its particular forms,

and adopted ceremonies more fitted for mankind in general; and in its

ultimate views, it preserves only pure, spiritual, and I may say

philosophical doctrines, the unity of the divine nature and a future

state, embracing a system of rewards and punishments suited to an

accountable and immortal being.

_Phil_.--I have been attentively listening to your discussion. The views

which Ambrosio has taken of Christianity certainly throw a light over it

perfectly new to me; and, I must say in candour, that I am disposed to

adopt his notion of the early state of society rather than that of my

Genius. I have always been accustomed to consider religious feeling as

instinctive; but Ambrosio's arguments have given me something approaching

to a definite faith for an obscure and indefinite notion. I am willing

to allow that man was created, not a savage, as he is represented in my

vision, but perfect in his faculties and with a variety of instinctive

powers and knowledge; that he transmitted these powers and knowledge to

his offspring; but that by an improper use of reason in disobedience to

the divine will, the instinctive faculties of most of his descendants

became deteriorated and at last lost, but that these faculties were

preserved in the race of Abraham and David, and the full power again

bestowed upon or recovered by Christ. I am ready to allow the importance

of religion in cultivating and improving the world; and Ambrosio's view

appears to me capable of being referred to a general law of our nature;

and revelation may be regarded not as a partial interference but as a

constant principle belonging to the mind of man, and the belief in

supernatural forms and agency, the results of prophecies and the

miracles, as one only of the necessary consequences of it. Man, as a

reasoning animal, must always have doubted of his immortality and plan of

conduct; in all the results of faith, there is immediate submission to a

divine will, which we are sure is good. We may compare the destiny of

man in this respect to that of a migratory bird; if a slow flying bird,

as a landrail in the Orkneys in autumn, had reason and could use it as to

the probability of his finding his way over deserts, across seas, and of

securing his food in passing to a warm climate 3,000 miles off, he would

undoubtedly starve in Europe; under the direction of his instinct he

securely arrives there in good condition. I have allowed the force of

your objections to that part of my vision relating to the origin of

society, but I hope you will admit that the conclusion of it is not

inconsistent with the ideas derived from revelation respecting the future

state of the human being.

_Amb_.--Revelation has not disclosed to us the nature of this state, but

only fixed its certainty. We are sure from geological facts, as well as

from sacred history, that man is a recent animal on the globe, and that

this globe has undergone one considerable revolution, since the creation,

by water; and we are taught that it is to undergo another, by fire,

preparatory to a new and glorified state of existence of man; but this is

all we are permitted to know, and as this state is to be entirely

different from the present one of misery and probation, any knowledge

respecting it would be useless and indeed almost impossible.

_Phil_.--My Genius has placed the more exalted spiritual natures in

cometary worlds, and this last fiery revolution may be produced by the

appulse of a comet.

_Amb_.--Human fancy may imagine a thousand manners in which it may be

produced, but upon such notions it is absurd to dwell. I will not allow

your Genius the slightest approach to inspiration, and I can admit no

verisimility in a reverie which is fixed on a foundation you now allow to

be so weak. But see, the twilight is beginning to appear in the orient

sky, and there are some dark clouds on the horizon opposite to the crater

of Vesuvius, the lower edges of which transmit a bright light, showing

the sun is already risen in the country beneath them. I would say that

they may serve as an image of the hopes of immortality derived from

revelation; for we are sure from the light reflected in those clouds that

the lands below us are in the brightest sunshine, but we are entirely

ignorant of the surface and the scenery; so, by revelation, the light of

an imperishable and glorious world is disclosed to us; but it is in

eternity, and its objects cannot be seen by mortal eye or imaged by

mortal imagination.

_Phil_.--I am not so well read in the Scriptures as I hope I shall be at

no very distant time; but I believe the pleasures of heaven are mentioned

more distinctly than you allow in the sacred writings. I think I

remember that the saints are said to be crowned with palms and amaranths,

and that they are described as perpetually hymning and praising God.

_Amb_.--This is evidently only metaphorical; music is the sensual

pleasure which approaches nearest to an intellectual one, and probably

may represent the delight resulting from the perception of the harmony of

things and of truth seen in God. The palm as an evergreen tree and the

amaranth a perdurable flower are emblems of immortality. If I am allowed

to give a metaphorical allusion to the future state of the blest, I

should image it by the orange grove in that sheltered glen, on which the

sun is now beginning to shine, and of which the trees are at the same

time loaded with sweet golden fruit and balmy silver flowers. Such

objects may well portray a state in which hope and fruition become one

eternal feeling.

_Onu_.--This glorious sunrise seems to have made you both poetical.

Though with the darkest and most gloomy mind of the party I cannot help

feeling its influence, I cannot help believing with you that the night of

death will be succeeded by a bright morning; but, as in the scene below

us, the objects are nearly the same as they were last evening, with more

of brightness and brilliancy, with a fairer prospect in the east and more

mist in the west, so I cannot help believing that our new state of

existence must bear an analogy to the present one, and that the order of

events will not be entirely different.

_Amb_.--Your view is not an unnatural one; but I am rejoiced to find some

symptoms of a change in your opinions.

_Onu_.--I wish with all my heart they were stronger; I begin to feel my

reason a weight and my scepticism a very heavy load. Your discussions

have made me a Philo-Christian, but I cannot understand nor embrace all

the views you have developed, though I really wish to do so.

_Amb_.--Your wish, if sincere, I doubt not will be gratified. Fix your

powerful mind upon the harmony of the moral world, as you have been long

accustomed to do upon the order of the physical universe, and you will

see the scheme of the eternal intelligence developing itself alike in

both. Think of the goodness and mercy of omnipotence, and aid your

contemplation by devotional feelings and mental prayer and aspirations to

the source of all knowledge, and wait with humility for the light which I

doubt not will be so produced in your mind.

_Onu_.--You again perplex me; I cannot believe that the adorations or

offerings of so feeble a creature can influence the decrees of

omnipotence.

_Amb_.--You mistake me: as to their influencing or affecting the supreme

mind it is out of the question, but they affect your own mind, they

perpetuate a habit of gratitude and of obedience which may gradually end

in perfect faith, they discipline the affections and keep the heart in a

state of preparation to receive and preserve all good and pious feelings.

Whoever passes from utter darkness into bright sunshine finds that he

cannot at first distinguish objects better in one than in the other, but

in a feeble light he acquires gradually the power of bearing a brighter

one, and gains at last the habit not only of supporting it, but of

receiving delight as well as instruction from it. In the pious

contemplations that I recommend to you there is the twilight or sober

dawn of faith which will ultimately enable you to support the brightness

of its meridian sun.

_Onu_.--I understand you, but your metaphor is more poetical than just;

your discipline, however, I have no doubt, is better fitted to enable me

to bear the light than to contemplate it through the smoked or coloured

glasses of scepticism.

_Amb_.--Yes, for they not only diminish its brightness but alter its

nature.