For, the problems to be solved are precisely10 those which the physiologist11 and the naturalist omit to state. It is not so pertinent12 to man to know all the individuals of the animal kingdom, as it is to know whence and whereto is this tyrannizing unity13 in his constitution, which evermore separates and classifies things, endeavoring to reduce the most diverse to one form. When I behold14 a rich landscape, it is less to my purpose to recite correctly the order and superposition of the strata15, than to know why all thought of multitude is lost in a tranquil16 sense of unity. I cannot greatly honor minuteness in details, so long as there is no hint to explain the relation between things and thoughts; no ray upon the metaphysics of conchology, of botany, of the arts, to show the relation of the forms of flowers, shells, animals, architecture, to the mind, and build science upon ideas. In a cabinet of natural history, we become sensible of a certain occult recognition and sympathy in regard to the most unwieldly and eccentric forms of beast, fish, and insect. The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter’s at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also, — faint copies of an invisible archetype. Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks that wonderful congruity17 which subsists18 between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in every mountain stratum19, in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or atmospheric20 influence which observation or analysis lay open. A perception of this mystery inspires the muse21 of George Herbert, the beautiful psalmist of the seventeenth century. The following lines are part of his little poem on Man.
“Man is all symmetry,
Full of proportions, one limb to another,
And to all the world besides.
Each part may call the farthest, brother;
For head with foot hath private amity22,
And both with moons and tides.
“Nothing hath got so far
But man hath caught and kept it as his prey23;
His eyes dismount the highest star;
He is in little all the sphere.
Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Find their acquaintance there.
“For us, the winds do blow,
The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow;
Nothing we see, but means our good,
As our delight, or as our treasure;
The whole is either our cupboard of food,
Or cabinet of pleasure.
“The stars have us to bed:
Night draws the curtain; which the sun withdraws.
Music and light attend our head.
All things unto our flesh are kind,
In their descent and being; to our mind,
In their ascent24 and cause.
“More servants wait on man
Than he’ll take notice of. In every path,
He treads down that which doth befriend him
When sickness makes him pale and wan25.
Oh mighty26 love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.”
The perception of this class of truths makes the attraction which draws men to science, but the end is lost sight of in attention to the means. In view of this half-sight of science, we accept the sentence of Plato, that, “poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.” Every surmise27 and vaticination of the mind is entitled to a certain respect, and we learn to prefer imperfect theories, and sentences, which contain glimpses of truth, to digested systems which have no one valuable suggestion. A wise writer will feel that the ends of study and composition are best answered by announcing undiscovered regions of thought, and so communicating, through hope, new activity to the torpid28 spirit.
I shall therefore conclude this essay with some traditions of man and nature, which a certain poet sang to me; and which, as they have always been in the world, and perhaps reappear to every bard29, may be both history and prophecy.
‘The foundations of man are not in matter, but in spirit. But the element of spirit is eternity30. To it, therefore, the longest series of events, the oldest chronologies are young and recent. In the cycle of the universal man, from whom the known individuals proceed, centuries are points, and all history is but the epoch31 of one degradation32.
‘We distrust and deny inwardly our sympathy with nature. We own and disown our relation to it, by turns. We are, like Nebuchadnezzar, dethroned, bereft33 of reason, and eating grass like an ox. But who can set limits to the remedial force of spirit?
‘A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal34, as gently as we awake from dreams. Now, the world would be insane and rabid, if these disorganizations should last for hundreds of years. It is kept in check by death and infancy35. Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise.
‘Man is the dwarf36 of himself. Once he was permeated37 and dissolved by spirit. He filled nature with his overflowing38 currents. Out from him sprang the sun and moon; from man, the sun; from woman, the moon. The laws of his mind, the periods of his actions externized themselves into day and night, into the year and the seasons. But, having made for himself this huge shell, his waters retired39; he no longer fills the veins40 and veinlets; he is shrunk to a drop. He sees, that the structure still fits him, but fits him colossally41. Say, rather, once it fitted him, now it corresponds to him from far and on high. He adores timidly his own work. Now is man the follower42 of the sun, and woman the follower of the moon. Yet sometimes he starts in his slumber43, and wonders at himself and his house, and muses44 strangely at the resemblance betwixt him and it. He perceives that if his law is still paramount45, if still he have elemental power, if his word is sterling46 yet in nature, it is not conscious power, it is not inferior but superior to his will. It is Instinct.’ Thus my Orphic poet sang.
At present, man applies to nature but half his force. He works on the world with his understanding alone. He lives in it, and masters it by a penny-wisdom; and he that works most in it, is but a half-man, and whilst his arms are strong and his digestion47 good, his mind is imbruted, and he is a selfish savage48. His relation to nature, his power over it, is through the understanding; as by manure49; the economic use of fire, wind, water, and the mariner’s needle; steam, coal, chemical agriculture; the repairs of the human body by the dentist and the surgeon. This is such a resumption of power, as if a banished50 king should buy his territories inch by inch, instead of vaulting51 at once into his throne. Meantime, in the thick darkness, there are not wanting gleams of a better light, — occasional examples of the action of man upon nature with his entire force, — with reason as well as understanding. Such examples are; the traditions of miracles in the earliest antiquity52 of all nations; the history of Jesus Christ; the achievements of a principle, as in religious and political revolutions, and in the abolition53 of the Slave-trade; the miracles of enthusiasm, as those reported of Swedenborg, Hohenlohe, and the Shakers; many obscure and yet contested facts, now arranged under the name of Animal Magnetism54; prayer; eloquence55; self-healing; and the wisdom of children. These are examples of Reason’s momentary56 grasp of the sceptre; the exertions57 of a power which exists not in time or space, but an instantaneous in-streaming causing power. The difference between the actual and the ideal force of man is happily figured by the schoolmen, in saying, that the knowledge of man is an evening knowledge, vespertina cognitio, but that of God is a morning knowledge, matutina cognitio.
The problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty, is solved by the redemption of the soul. The ruin or the blank, that we see when we look at nature, is in our own eye. The axis58 of vision is not coincident with the axis of things, and so they appear not transparent59 but opake. The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself. He cannot be a naturalist, until he satisfies all the demands of the spirit. Love is as much its demand, as perception. Indeed, neither can be perfect without the other. In the uttermost meaning of the words, thought is devout, and devotion is thought. Deep calls unto deep. But in actual life, the marriage is not celebrated60. There are innocent men who worship God after the tradition of their fathers, but their sense of duty has not yet extended to the use of all their faculties61. And there are patient naturalists62, but they freeze their subject under the wintry light of the understanding. Is not prayer also a study of truth, — a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily63, without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute64 to detach every object from personal relations, and see it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time, kindle65 science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth66 anew into the creation.
It will not need, when the mind is prepared for study, to search for objects. The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous67 in the common. What is a day? What is a year? What is summer? What is woman? What is a child? What is sleep? To our blindness, these things seem unaffecting. We make fables69 to hide the baldness of the fact and conform it, as we say, to the higher law of the mind. But when the fact is seen under the light of an idea, the gaudy70 fable68 fades and shrivels. We behold the real higher law. To the wise, therefore, a fact is true poetry, and the most beautiful of fables. These wonders are brought to our own door. You also are a man. Man and woman, and their social life, poverty, labor71, sleep, fear, fortune, are known to you. Learn that none of these things is superficial, but that each phenomenon has its roots in the faculties and affections of the mind. Whilst the abstract question occupies your intellect, nature brings it in the concrete to be solved by your hands. It were a wise inquiry72 for the closet, to compare, point by point, especially at remarkable73 crises in life, our daily history, with the rise and progress of ideas in the mind.
So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. Then shall come to pass what my poet said; ‘Nature is not fixed74 but fluid. Spirit alters, moulds, makes it. The immobility or bruteness of nature, is the absence of spirit; to pure spirit, it is fluid, it is volatile75, it is obedient. Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler’s trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar’s garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion76 is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx77 of the spirit. So fast will disagreeable appearances, swine, spiders, snakes, pests, madhouses, prisons, enemies, vanish; they are temporary and shall be no more seen. The sordor and filths of nature, the sun shall dry up, and the wind exhale78. As when the summer comes from the south; the snow-banks melt, and the face of the earth becomes green before it, so shall the advancing spirit create its ornaments79 along its path, and carry with it the beauty it visits, and the song which enchants80 it; it shall draw beautiful faces, warm hearts, wise discourse81, and heroic acts, around its way, until evil is no more seen. The kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not with observation, — a dominion such as now is beyond his dream of God, — he shall enter without more wonder than the blind man feels who is gradually restored to perfect sight.’
The End
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1
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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verities
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| n.真实( verity的名词复数 )；事实；真理；真实的陈述 | |
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bereave
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| v.使痛失(亲人等)，剥夺，使丧失 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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naturalist
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| n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者) | |
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devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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subtraction
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| n.减法，减去 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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physiologist
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| n.生理学家 | |
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pertinent
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| adj.恰当的；贴切的；中肯的；有关的；相干的 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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congruity
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| n.全等，一致 | |
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subsists
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| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的第三人称单数 ) | |
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stratum
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| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
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atmospheric
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| adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的 | |
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21
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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22
amity
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| n.友好关系 | |
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23
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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24
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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25
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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28
torpid
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| adj.麻痹的，麻木的，迟钝的 | |
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29
bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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30
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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31
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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32
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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33
bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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35
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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36
dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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37
permeated
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| 弥漫( permeate的过去式和过去分词 )； 遍布； 渗入； 渗透 | |
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38
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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39
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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40
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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41
colossally
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42
follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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43
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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44
muses
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的第三人称单数 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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45
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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46
sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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47
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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48
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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49
manure
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| n.粪，肥，肥粒；vt.施肥 | |
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50
banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
vaulting
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| n.（天花板或屋顶的）拱形结构 | |
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52
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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53
abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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54
magnetism
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| n.磁性，吸引力，磁学 | |
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55
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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56
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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57
exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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58
axis
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| n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线 | |
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59
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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60
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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61
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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62
naturalists
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| n.博物学家( naturalist的名词复数 )；（文学艺术的）自然主义者 | |
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63
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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64
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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65
kindle
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| v.点燃，着火 | |
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66
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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67
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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68
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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69
fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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70
gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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71
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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72
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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73
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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74
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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75
volatile
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| adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质 | |
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76
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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77
influx
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| n.流入，注入 | |
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78
exhale
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| v.呼气，散出，吐出，蒸发 | |
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79
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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80
enchants
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| 使欣喜，使心醉( enchant的第三人称单数 )； 用魔法迷惑 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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