the real beginning, the universal not last but first: “ γνωριμώτερον φύσει-ἀρχή.” The potentiality by which one piece of matter becomes wheat or oats, fruit or flower, is to be found in that silent dominating principle which rules the beginning and every successive stage of outward and inward history. The science of mechanism, applied to the universe, is geometry and astronomy. By these we follow nature from the first origin-seed-egg-to the greatest dimensions: including the indefinitely large, or the indescribably small; a world in a particle, a particle in a world, or world within world. It is well to remind the reader, that the world is really very unlike all that we actually perceive, or can represent by imagination. When astronomers talk of the moon, and chemists of elementary substances, they mean the things we see and touch; but when they speak of the real or essential structure of these bodies, they are compelled to use words which have only a symbolical meaning, and refer to things whose nature, such as our senses acquaint us with, cannot be either perceived or imagined. We find the same parts and elements, but infinitely varied, in a particle and in the all-embracing heaven. There is in the densest and purest substances an æthereal influx; and consciousness, by other or similar media, sensational, mental, emotional, acts along and through vibratory motions; and excites those volitions of which we are conscious when we put forth power. That the things which we see with our eyes and touch with our hands really exist, we are sure; but we only know them by our own ideas and sensations, which represent them as they seem, not as they really are. There is within us and within the world around something permanent in the midst of change, something outside our consciousness and outside the world, yet acting on both. Thus we obtain some approximate conception of influence by means of volition on matter; and, we speak reverently, possibly of the means used in divine operation; and of the media uniting states and places, solar vortices and starry heavens. It is as if by study of lowly hovels we ascended to palaces of the sky; from influences, acting in earthly dust, traced the knitting of the stupendous arch of heaven, the rearing of magnificent courts; and knew how God studs the vast expanded dome with many stars, "stellis ardentibus aptum" and in exuberance of love enriches and beautifies our earth. "Tum pater omnipotens fecundis imbribus Æther These æthereal media, or whatever we may ultimately find them, are of various gradations and operation. They are interior and exterior; dependent and independent; like magnetism-negative and positive; and their maintenance, if physical, is probably by atomic and molecular repulsions and attractions. For sake of definiteness, if definiteness be desirable, think of Evolution in one of its aspects—“ Form.” Everything is called a "thing" on account of its form, so says Aristotle —“rò tí v eiva." By means of the form of an entity we understand that it is of a peculiar genus or species, and why it is of one quality rather than another; consequently we may say, "The law is contained in the form;" and form is perceived by our educated sense of sight. There are forms of other substances which are only mentally discerned in our fashioning of images abstractedly from matter. In higher sense, Form means the universe as containing all and everything within its embrace. In highest sense, Form means God: so says S. Augustine, "Forma aliqua est æterna et incommutabilis per quam cuncta formantur;" and again, “ Forma quædam non formata Verbum Dei, forma sine tempore et loco." In other words-the eternal reality as distinguished from surface forms and vanishing semblances: the One by, in, and for whom all have being and exist. Barrow enumerates among forms and modes of being and operation far above our reach-" God's eternity without succession," and couples with it "His prescience without necessitation of events" ("Sermon on the Unsearchableness of God's Judgments"). When the eye is wearied with seeing, the ear with hearing, and the imagination with the effort to gather all the scattered glories of the world into one vision of material splendour, we feel, we know, that beyond all we see, and hear, and seek, is something ineffably greater. Speaking of forms generally, we say of every natural substance, it is a system of internal and external qualities. Living form is built up outwardly by action from within; and, as it must stop somewhere, the different points at which it stops, as it communicates different and peculiar figures, are the limits of its evolution. To attain adequate knowledge of all forms, we must retrace the whole past history of the object, see that which is in the light of that which has been, how the particular stands to the universal, and, as to man, mark the consciousness going from itself to find that universal Mind or Intelligence which is the prius and unity of all. The true character of every natural and specific figure gives it not merely surface but bounds: bounds to which the internal essence and outer environment extend-arrival at which is termination. Consequently, Form is the definition or "pos, that outward universal signature by which Nature denotes and limits her several productions; the obvious test by which we know this. to be a vegetable, that an oak, the other an animal; the essential determination, or fluxion, or coincidence, of parts-points-substances-forces. Behind and beyond all the forms is the hidden reality, the world as it is in itself, not the hard antithesis, but the reflection of mind, that in which mind sees itself. By cultivation we raise our mind above the ideas which take form and quantity from space and time, and acquire intellectual and emotional relish for things spiritual and divine. Every man is able to think in a sphere above that of sensational nature, and does so think. It is of the very essence of man, as a spiritual being, to transcend the finite, to seek after and rest in an infinite unity of thought and being. The organic processes of this mental development are exquisitely delicate. Taking the outer and mechanical basis of them, the thickness of a nerve-fibre may be taken as 1-1200th part of a line; central fibres are incomparably finer, and in a single square inch of the brain are packed about six millions of such fibres. By this basis of mysterious organization, fine material relations and disposition of filaments, we are capable of advancing mental and emotional relations into a high sphere of spiritual activities. Our mind is not merely a passive recipient, it adds to its own proper cognitions, and, both in science and religion, believes articulately much that it is impossible fully to conceive. By skilful persistent development, we perform operations which we cannot unravel: impenetrable as to physics, not as to our consciousness. These nebulæ in the sky of our intellect, which we cannot at present resolve, are indications of far-off worlds and processes yet to be revealed. "Il n'y a donc aucune loi sensible qui n'ait derrière elle (passez moi cette expression ridicule) une loi spirituelle dont la première n'est que l'expression visible" ("Les Soirées. de St. Petersbourg," x. entretien). By a reverse degenerate diminishment, we distort our faculties, the beams or ideas of truth are not reflected according to their true incidence, and our mind, like an enchanted glass, is full of imposture. Other thoughts, as to Law within the Law, can be put into more simple shape. The anatomist concludes that every bone found in the rocks served a purpose; and, by examination of the bone, he attains knowledge of the size, shape, food, habits of an animal which he clothes with sinews and flesh; and then depicts so that we may see it browsing amongst the trees, ferns, reeds, of an ancient world. By this fact, variously verified, we have an intimate persuasion of plan, that a chain of law, order, affinity, binds all nature together; that the essences, forms, numbers of mental, emotional, physical powers, are of universal, deep, inward dependence. The moral tie binds with not less force than the physical, the religious tie holds |