I. The more _consciousness_ in our Thoughts and Words, and the less in
our Impulses and general Actions, the better and more healthful the
state both of head and heart. As the flowers from an orange tree in
its time of blossoming, that burgeon forth, expand, fall and are
momently replaced, such is the sequence of hourly and momently
charities in a pure and gracious soul. The modern fiction which
depictures the son of Cytherea with a bandage round his eyes, is not
without a spiritual meaning. There is a sweet and holy blindness in
Christian LOVE, even as there is a blindness of Life, yea and of
Genius too, in the moment of productive Energy.
II. Motives are symptoms of weakness, and supplements for the
deficient Energy of the living PRINCIPLE, the LAW within us. Let them
then be reserved for those momentous Acts and Duties, in which the
strongest and best balanced natures must feel themselves deficient,
and where Humility, no less than Prudence, prescribes Deliberation. We
find a similitude of this, I had almost said a remote analogy, in
organized bodies. The lowest class of animals or _protozoa_, the
_polypi_ for instance, have neither brain nor nerves. Their motive
powers are all from without. The sun, light, the warmth, the air are
their nerves and brain. As life ascends, nerves appear; but still only
as the conductors of an _external_ influence; next are seen the knots
or ganglions, as so many _foci_ of _instinctive_ agency, that
imperfectly imitate the yet wanting _centre_.--And now the promise and
token of a true Individuality are disclosed; both the reservoir of
Sensibility and the imitative power that actuates the organs of Motion
(the muscles) with the net-work of conductors, are all taken inward
and appropriated; the Spontaneous rises into the Voluntary, and
finally after various steps and a long ascent, the Material and Animal
Means and Conditions are prepared for the manifestations of a Free
Will, having its Law within itself and its motive in the Law--and thus
bound to originate its own Acts, not only without, but even against,
alien Stimulants. That in our present state we have only the Dawning
of this inward Sun (the perfect Law of Liberty) will sufficiently
limit and qualify the preceding position if only it have been allowed
to produce its twofold consequence--the excitement of Hope and the
repression of Vanity.[53]
[53] See Prof. J. H. Green's 'Vital Dynamics,' 1840.--ED.