Fancy can lay only the past and the future under her copying-paper: and
every actual presence of the object sets limits to her power: just as
water distilled from roses, according to the old naturalists, lost its
power exactly at the periodical blooming of the rose.
* * *
The older, the more tranquil, and pious a man is, so much the more holy
does he esteem all that is _innate_, that is, _feeling_ and _power_;
whereas in the estimate of the multitude whatsoever is _self-acquired_,
the ability of practice and science in general has an undue
pre-eminence; for the latter is universally appreciated, and therefore
even by those who have it not, but the former not at all. In the
twilight and the moonshine the fixed stars, which are suns, retire and
veil themselves in obscurity; whilst the planets, which are simply
earths, preserve their borrowed light unobscured. The elder races of
men, amongst whom man _was_ more, though he had not yet _become_ so
much, had a childlike feeling of sympathy with all the gifts of the
Infinite--for example, with strength--beauty--and good fortune; and
even the _involuntary_ had a sanctity in their eyes, and was to them a
prophecy and a revelation: hence the value they ascribed, and the
art of interpretation they applied, to the speeches of children--of
madmen--of drunkards--and of dreamers.
* * *
As the blind man knows not light, and through that ignorance also of
necessity knows not darkness,--so likewise, but for disinterestedness
we should know nothing of selfishness, but for slavery nothing of
freedom: there are perhaps in this world many things which remain
obscure to us for want of alternating with their opposites.
* * *
Derham remarks in his Physico-theology that the deaf hear best in the
midst of noise, as, for instance, during the ringing of bells, &c. This
must be the reason, I suppose, that the thundering of drums, cannons,
&c., accompany the entrance into cities of princes and ministers, who
are generally rather deaf, in order that they may the better hear the
petitions and complaints of the people.