"There are many things, which, having no corporeal evidence, can be
perceived and comprehended only by the discursive energies of reason.
Hence the ambiguous nature of matter can be comprehended only by
adulterated opinion. Matter is the principle of all bodies, and is
stamped with the impression of forms. Fire, air, and water derive their
origin and principle from the scalene triangle. But the earth was
created from right-angled triangles, of which two of the sides are
equal. The sphere and the pyramid contain in themselves the figure of
fire; but the octaedron was destined to be the figure of air, and the
icosaedron of water. The right-angled isosceles triangle produces from
itself a square, andthe square generates from itself the cube, which is
the figure peculiar to earth. But the figure of a beautiful and perfect
sphere was imparted to the most beautiful and perfect world, that it
might be indigent of nothing, but contain all things, embracing and
comprehending them in itself, and thus might be excellent and
admirable, similar to and in concord with itself, ever moving musically
and melodiously. If I use a novel language, excuse me. As Apuleius
says, pardon must be granted to novelty of words, when it serves to
illustrate the obscurity of things."
These words came from the lips of the lion-like philosopher, who has
been noticed before in these pages. He was sitting with Flemming,
smoking a long pipe. As the Baron said, he was indeed a strange owl;
for the owl is a grave bird; a monk, who chants midnight mass in the
great temple of Nature;--an anchorite,--a pillar saint,--the very
Simeon Stylites of his neighbourhood. Such, likewise, was the
philosophical Professor. Solitary, but with a mighty current, flowed
the river of his life, like the Nile, without a tributary stream, and
making fertile only a single strip in the vast desert. His temperament
had been in youth a joyous one; and now, amid all his sorrows and
privations, for he had many, he looked upon the world as a glad,
bright, glorious world. On the many joys of life he gazed still with
the eyes of childhood, from the far-gone Past upward, trusting,
hoping;--and upon its sorrows with the eyes of age, from the distant
Future, downward, triumphant, not despairing. He loved solitude, and
silence, and candle-light, and the deep midnight. "For," said he, "if
the morning hours are the wings of the day, I only fold them about me
to sleep more sweetly; knowing that, at its other extremity, the day,
like the fowls of the air, has an epicurean morsel,--a parson's nose;
and on this oily midnight my spirit revels and is glad."
Such was the Professor, who had been talking in a half-intelligible
strain for two hours or more. The Baron had fallen fast asleep in his
chair; but Flemming sat listening with excited imagination, and the
Professor continued in the following words, which, to the best of his
listener's memory, seemed gleaned here and there from Fichte's Destiny
of Man, and Shubert's History of the Soul.
"Life is one, and universal; its forms many and individual. Throughout
this beautiful and wonderful creation there is never-ceasing motion,
without rest by night or day, ever weaving to and fro. Swifter than a
weaver's shuttle it flies from Birth to Death, from Death to Birth;
from the beginning seeks the end, and finds it not, for the seeming end
is only a dim beginning of a new out-going and endeavour after the end.
As the ice upon the mountain, when the warm breath of the summer sun
breathes upon it, melts, and divides into drops, each of which reflects
an image of the sun; so life, in the smile of God's love, divides
itself into separate forms, each bearing in it and reflecting an image
of God's love. Of all these forms the highest and most perfect inits
god-likeness is the human soul. The vast cathedral of Nature is full of
holy scriptures, and shapes of deep, mysterious meaning; but all is
solitary and silent there; no bending knee, no uplifted eye, no lip
adoring, praying. Into this vast cathedral comes the human soul,
seeking its Creator; and the universal silence is changed to sound, and
the sound is harmonious, and has a meaning, and is comprehended and
felt. It was an ancient saying of the Persians, that the waters rush
from the mountains and hurry forth into all the lands to find the Lord
of the Earth; and the flame of the Fire, when it awakes, gazes no more
upon the ground, but mounts heavenward to seek the Lord of Heaven; and
here and there the Earth has built the great watch-towers of the
mountains, and they lift their heads far up into the sky, and gaze ever
upward and around, to see if the Judge of the World comes not! Thus in
Nature herself, without man, there lies a waiting, and hoping, a
looking and yearning, after an unknown somewhat. Yes; when, above
there, where the mountain lifts its head over all others, that it may
be alone with the clouds and storms of heaven, the lonely eagle looks
forth into the gray dawn, to see if the day comes not! when, by the
mountain torrent, the brooding raven listens to hear if the chamois is
returning from his nightly pasture in the valley; and when the soon
uprising sun calls out the spicy odors of the thousand flowers, the
Alpine flowers, with heaven's deep blue and the blush of sunset on
their leaves;--then there awakes in Nature, and the soul of man can see
and comprehend it, an expectation and a longing for a future revelation
of God's majesty. It awakens, also, when in the fulness of life, field
and forest rest at noon, and through the stillness is heard only the
song of the grasshopper and the hum of the bee; and when at evening the
singing lark, up from the sweet-smelling vineyards rises, or in the
later hours of night Orion puts on his shining armour, to walk forth in
the fields of heaven. But in the soul of man alone is this longing
changed to certainty and fulfilled. For lo! thelight of the sun and the
stars shines through the air, and is nowhere visible and seen; the
planets hasten with more than the speed of the storm through infinite
space, and their footsteps are not heard, but where the sunlight
strikes the firm surface of the planets, where the stormwind smites the
wall of the mountain cliff, there is the one seen and the other heard.
Thus is the glory of God made visible, and may be seen, where in the
soul of man it meets its likeness changeless and firm-standing. Thus,
then, stands Man;--a mountain on the boundary between two worlds;--its
foot in one, its summit far-rising into the other. From this summit the
manifold landscape of life is visible, the way of the Past and
Perishable, which we have left behind us; and, as we evermore ascend,
bright glimpses of the daybreak of Eternity beyond us!"
Flemming would fain have interrupted this discourse at times, to answer
and inquire, but the Professor went on, warming and glowing more
andmore. At length, there was a short pause, and Flemming said;
"All these indefinite longings,--these yearnings after an unknown
somewhat, I have felt and still feel within me; but not yet their
fulfilment."
"That is because you have not faith;" answered the Professor. "The
Present is an age of doubt and disbelief, and darkness; out of which
shall arise a clear and bright Hereafter. In the second part of
Goethe's Faust, there is a grand and striking scene, where in the
classical Walpurgis Night, on the Pharsalian Plains, the mocking
Mephistopheles sits down between the solemn antique Sphinxes, and
boldly questions them, and reads their riddles. The red light of
innumerable watch-fires glares all round about, and shines upon the
terrible face of the arch-scoffer; while on either side, severe,
majestic, solemnly serene, we behold the gigantic forms of the children
of Chimæra, half buried in the earth, their mild eyes gazing fixedly,
as if they heard through the midnight, the swift-rushing wings of the
Stymphalides, striving to outstrip the speed of Alcides' arrows! Angry
griffins are near them; and not far are Sirens, singing their wondrous
songs from the rocking branches of the willow trees! Even thus does a
scoffing and unbelieving Present sit down, between an unknown Future
and a too believing Past, and question and challenge the gigantic forms
of faith, half buried in the sands of Time, and gazing forward
steadfastly into the night, whilst sounds of anger and voices of
delight alternate vex and soothe the ear of man!--But the time will
come, when the soul of man shall return again childlike and trustful to
its faith in God; and look God in the face and die; for it is an old
saying, full of deep, mysterious meaning, that he must die, who hath
looked upon a God. And this is the fate of the soul, that it should die
continually. No sooner here on earth does it awake to its peculiar
being, than it struggles to behold and comprehend the Spirit of Life.
In the first dim twilight of its existence, it beholds this spirit, is
pervaded by its energies,--is quick and creative likethe spirit itself,
and yet slumbers away into death after having seen it. But the image it
has seen, remains, in the eternal procreation, as a homogeneal
existence, is again renewed, and the seeming death, from moment to
moment, becomes the source of kind after kind of existences in
ever-ascending series. The soul aspires ever onward to love and to
behold. It sees the image more perfect in the brightening twilight of
the dawn, in the ever higher-rising sun. It sleeps again, dying in the
clearer vision; but the image seen remains as a permanent kind; and the
slumberer awakes anew and ever higher after its own image, till at
length, in the full blaze of noonday, a being comes forth, which, like
the eagle, can behold the sun and die not. Then both live on, even when
this bodily element, the mist and vapor through which the young eagle
gazed, dissolves and falls to earth."
"I am not sure that I understand you," said Flemming; "but if I do, you
mean to say, that, as the body continually changes and takes unto
itselfnew properties, and is not the same to-day as yesterday, so
likewise the soul lays aside its idiosyncrasies, and is changed by
acquiring new powers, and thus may be said to die. And hence, properly
speaking, the soul lives always in the Present, and has, and can have,
no Future; for the Future becomes the Present, and the soul that then
lives in me is a higher and more perfect soul; and so onward
forevermore."
"I mean what I say," continued the Professor; "and can find no more
appropriate language to express my meaning than that which I have used.
But as I said before, pardon must be granted to the novelty of words,
when it serves to illustrate the obscurity of things. And I think you
will see clearly from what I have said, that this earthly life, when
seen hereafter from heaven, will seem like an hour passed long ago, and
dimly remembered;--that long, laborious, full of joys and sorrows as it
is, it will then have dwindled down to a mere point, hardly visible to
the far-reaching ken of the disembodied spirit. But the spirit itself
soars onward. And thus death is neither an end nor a beginning. It is a
transition not from one existence to another, but from one state of
existence to another. No link is broken in the chain of being; any more
than in passing from infancy to manhood, from manhood to old age. There
are seasons of reverie and deep abstraction, which seem to me analogous
to death. The soul gradually loses its consciousness of what is passing
around it; and takes no longer cognizance of objects which are near. It
seems for the moment to have dissolved its connexion with the body. It
has passed as it were into another state of being. It lives in another
world. It has flown over lands and seas; and holds communion with those
it loves, in distant regions of the earth, and the more distant heaven.
It sees familiar faces, and hears beloved voices, which to the bodily
senses are no longer visible and audible. And this likewise is death;
save that when we die, the soul returns no more to the dwelling it has
left."
"You seem to take it for granted," interrupted Flemming, "that, in our
reveries, the soul really goes out of the body into distant places,
instead of summoning up their semblance within itself by the power of
memory and imagination!"
"Something I must take for granted," replied the Professor. "We will
not discuss that point now. I speak not without forethought. Just
observe what a glorious thing human life is, when seen in this light;
and how glorious man's destiny. I am; thou art; he is! seems but a
school-boy's conjugation. But therein lies a great mystery. These words
are significant of much. We behold all round about us one vast union,
in which no man can labor for himself without laboring at the same time
for all others; a glimpse of truth, which by the universal harmony of
things becomes an inward benediction, and lifts the soul mightily
upward. Still more so, when a man regards himself as a necessary member
of this union. The feeling of our dignity and our power grows strong,
when we say to ourselves; My being is not objectless and in vain; I am
a necessary link in the great chain, which, from the full development
of consciousness in the first man, reaches forward into eternity. All
the great, and wise, and good among mankind, all the benefactors of the
human race, whose names I read in the world's history, and the still
greater number of those, whose good deeds have outlived their
names,--all those have labored for me. I have entered into their
harvest. I walk the green earth, which they inhabited. I tread in their
footsteps, from which blessings grow. I can undertake the sublime task,
which they once undertook, the task of making our common brotherhood
wiser and happier. I can build forward, where they were forced to leave
off; and bring nearer to perfection the great edifice which they left
uncompleted. And at length I, too, must leave it, and go hence. O, this
is the sublimest thought of all! I can never finish the noble task;
therefore, so sure as this task is my destiny, I can never cease to
work, and consequently never cease to be. What men call death cannot
break off this task, which is never-ending; consequently no periodis
set to my being, and I am eternal. I lift my head boldly to the
threatening mountain peaks, and to the roaring cataract, and to the
storm-clouds swimming in the fire-sea overhead and say; I am eternal,
and defy your power! Break, break over me! and thou Earth, and thou
Heaven, mingle in the wild tumult! and ye Elements foam and rage, and
destroy this atom of dust,--this body, which I call mine! My will
alone, with its fixed purpose, shall hover brave and triumphant over
the ruins of the universe; for I have comprehended my destiny; and it
is more durable than ye! It is eternal; and I, who recognise it, I
likewise am eternal! Tell me, my friend, have you no faith in this?"
"I have;" answered Flemming, and there was another pause. He then said;
"I have listened to you patiently and without interruption. Now listen
to me. You complain of the skepticism of the age. This is one form in
which the philosophic spirit of the age presents itself. Let me tell
you, that another form, whichit assumes, is that of poetic reverie.
Plato of old had dreams like these; and the Mystics of the Middle Ages;
and still their disciples walk in the cloud-land and dream-land of this
poetic philosophy. Pleasant and cool upon their souls lie the shadows
of the trees under which Plato taught. From their whispering leaves
comes wafted across the noise of populous centuries a solemn and
mysterious sound, which to them is the voice of the Soul of the World.
All nature has become spiritualized and transfigured; and, wrapt in
beautiful, vague dreams of the real and the ideal, they live in this
green world, like the little child in the German tale, who sits by the
margin of a woodland lake, and hears the blue heaven and the branches
overhead dispute with their reflection in the water, which is the
reality and which the image. I willingly confess, that such day-dreams
as these appeal strongly to my imagination. Visitants and attendants
are they of those lofty souls, which, soaring ever higher and higher,
build themselves nests under the very eaves of the stars, forgetful
that theycannot live on air, but must descend to earth for food. Yet I
recognise them as day-dreams only; as shadows, not substantial things.
What I mainly dislike in the New Philosophy, is the cool impertinence
with which an old idea, folded in a new garment, looks you in the face
and pretends not to know you, though you have been familiar friends
from childhood. I remember an English author who, in speaking of your
German Philosophies, says very wisely; `Often a proposition of
inscrutable and dread aspect, when resolutely grappled with, and torn
from its shady den, and its bristling entrenchments of uncouth
terminology,--and dragged forth into the open light of day, to be seen
by the natural eye and tried by merely human understanding, proves to
be a very harmless truth, familiar to us from old, sometimes so
familiar as to be a truism. Too frequently the anxious novice is
reminded of Dryden in the Battle of the Books; there is a helmet of
rusty iron, dark, grim, gigantic; and within it, at the farthest
corner, is a head no bigger than a walnut.'--Can you believe, thatthese
words ever came from the lips of Carlyle! He has himself taken up the
uncouth terminology of late; and many pure, simple minds are much
offended at it. They seem to take it as a personal insult. They are
angry; and deny the just meed of praise. It is, however, hardly worth
while to lose our presence of mind. Let us rather profit as we may,
even from this spectacle, and recognise the monarch in his masquerade.
For, hooded and wrapped about with that strange and antique garb, there
walks a kingly, a most royal soul, even as the Emperor Charles walked
amid solemn cloisters under a monk's cowl;--a monarch still in soul.
Such things are not new in the history of the world. Ever and anon they
sweep over the earth, and blow themselves out soon, and then there is
quiet for a season, and the atmosphere of Truth seems more serene. Why
would you preach to the wind? Why reason with thunder-showers? Better
sit quiet, and see them pass over like a pageant, cloudy, superb, and
vast."
The Professor smiled self-complacently, but said not a word. Flemming
continued;
"I will add no more than this;--there are many speculations in
Literature, Philosophy, and Religion, which, though pleasant to walk
in, and lying under the shadow of great names, yet lead to no important
result. They resemble rather those roads in the western forests of my
native land, which, though broad and pleasant at first, and lying
beneath the shadow of great branches, finally dwindle to a squirrel
track, and run up a tree!"
The Professor hardly knew whether he should laugh or be offended at
this sally; and, laying his hand upon Flemming's arm, he said
seriously;
"Believe me, my young friend, the time will come, when you will think
more wisely on these things. And with you, I trust, that time will soon
come; since it moves more speedily with some than with others. For what
is Time? The shadow on the dial,--the striking of the clock,--the
running of the sand,--day and night,--summerand winter,--months, years,
centuries! These are but arbitrary and outward signs,--the measure of
Time, not Time itself! Time is the Life of the Soul. If not this, then
tell me what it is?"
The high and animated tone of voice in which the Professor uttered
these words aroused the Baron from his sleep; and, not distinctly
comprehending what was said, but thinking the Professor asked what time
it was, he innocently exclaimed;
"I should think it must be near midnight!"
This somewhat disconcerted the Professor, who took his leave soon
afterward. When he was gone the Baron said;
"Excuse me for treating your guest so cavalierly. His transcendentalism
annoyed me not a little; and I took refuge in sleep. One would think,
to judge by the language of this sect, that they alone saw any beauty
in Nature; and, when I hear one of them discourse, I am instantly
reminded of Goethe's Baccalaureus, when he exclaims; `The world was not
before I created it; Ibrought the sun up out of the sea; with me began
the changeful course of the moon; the day decked itself on my account;
the earth grew green and blossomed to meet me; at my nod in that first
night, the pomp of all the stars developed itself; who but I set you
free from all the bonds of Philisterlike, contracting thoughts? I,
however, emancipated as my mind assures me I am, gladly pursue my
inward light, advance boldly in a transport peculiarly my own, the
bright before me, and the dark behind!'--Do you not see a resemblance?
O, they might be modest enough to confess, that one straggling ray of
light may, by some accident, reach the blind eyes of even us poor,
benighted heathens?"
"Alas! how little veneration we have!" said Flemming. "I could not help
closing the discussion with a jest. An ill-timed levity often takes me
by surprise. On all such occasions I think of a scene at the
University, where, in the midst of a grave discussion on the
possibility of Absolute Motion, a scholar said he had seen a rock
splitopen, from which sprang a toad, who could not be supposed to have
any knowledge of the external world, and consequently his motion must
have been absolute. The learned Professor, who presided on that
occasion, was hardly more startled and astonished, than was our learned
Professor, five minutes ago. But come; wind up your watch, and let us
go to bed."
"By the way," said the Baron, "did you mind what a curious head he has.
There are two crowns upon it."
"That is a sign," replied Flemming, "that he will eat his bread in two
kingdoms."
"I think the poor man would be very thankful," said the Baron with a
smile, "if he were always sure of eating it in one. He is what the
Transcendentalists call a god-intoxicated man; and I advise him, as
Sauteul advised Bossuet, to go to Patmos and write a new Apocalypse."