Chapter VII: Letter III: Slavery (2)

Changing then the places of the age of inquiry and that of faith, we shall have, so far as the grand or European division is concerned, the epochs of credulity and faith, both essentially stationary elements, included within the stage of the development of the principle of unity; and those of inquiry and reason, both mainly productive of change, within the period of the reign of the principle of individuality. Judging now solely from our knowledge of the nature of these opposite drifts, what should we expect to discover as the prevalent characteristics of their respective periods of supremacy? We should look, during the time in which the principle of unity was developing its powers, for the predominant manifestation of all those elements of progress which belong on the side of order, strength, stability, permanence, conservatism, community of interests, associative effort, uniformity in political and religious belief, moral activity; for all those elements, in fine, which tend toward the unification of social power and interest, and toward progress by coöperation; and we should expect a corresponding lack of tendencies of an opposite kind. On the other hand, during the era in which the principle of individuality predominated, we should be prepared to see a preponderating manifestation of all those elements which tend to freedom, change, disintegration of interests, antagonistic or competitive effort, diversity in political and religious belief, intellectual activity; of all those drifts, in short, which relate to the individualizing of social power and interests, and to progress by antagonism; with corresponding absence of the elements active in the preceding epoch.

Turning now to Dr. Draper's storehouse of historical facts, do we find our expectations realized or disappointed?

We discover that during the age in which the principle of unity was dominant, vast, magnificent, opulent empires existed, consolidated, stable, powerful, orderly; but whose subjects possessed comparatively no freedom, which resisted all effort at progression, denied to men political equality, and sought to prevent all desire of change. We see a religious organization which bound the people in a single faith by a common creed; which fostered a spirit of brotherly sympathy; kept alive the fire of holy zeal by pious ministrations; taught the universal brotherhood of the human race; cultured the emotional nature of its worshippers; sought to eradicate pauperism, to abolish slavery, and to inculcate practical humility, treating peasant and king as equals before God; endeavored to provide for the spiritual and material wants of mankind; to become the guardian of the weak, the educator of the ignorant, the rescuer of the vicious, the comforter of the sorrowing, and the strong hand of protection between selfish or brutal power and the lowly; which, however, resisted all efforts at intellectual freedom, shut its ears to the voice of science, strove to repress the rising desires of the soul and keep it in perpetual bondage and darkness. We behold, next, a social organization in which, as a general rule, though with many exceptions, each individual held his fitting place, the station for which he was best adapted by natural character and training; in which each rank recognized its obligations of deference toward superiors, and of guardianship toward inferiors, and fulfilled, in the main, as they were then understood, the practical duties which these obligations created; in which the rich and powerful were the social fathers of the poor and humble, securing them from physical want and from the snares of designing men; but in which the spirit of independence was not alive, the dignity of labor was denied, the development which results from competitive struggles unknown, and education uncared for.

But the achievements of this stage of individual and social growth, those which stand out as the illustrious and characteristic features of the time, were its moral or religious accomplishments. The pages of history which detail the events of this epoch, are crowded with relations of heroic devotion to the individual's highest ideal of truth, not as occasional acts of life, but as the dominating purpose of existence; of loyalty to men and women of superior powers; of self-sacrifice for the welfare of others. The sentiments of Christianity, which appeal mainly to the heart, took fast hold on the emotional and affectional natures of a simple people not yet developed in their intellectual faculties. A sense of responsibility for his every action rested heavily on every person. Men shut themselves in dungeons, scourged their flesh, lacerated their bodies, inflicted all manner of torture on their frames, that they might purge away every evil desire, every wrong propensity, and conquer their material elements into submission to the spiritual. Deeds of lofty self-abnegation, rarely if ever known to modern days, were then common. Stern virtue, as virtue was then understood, was largely prevalent. The habits of life were devout, reverential, careful of sanctities, solemn and austere. Individuals and community lived in the constant remembrance of being strictly accountable for the manner and actions of their lives. A moral and religious atmosphere pervaded society, such as our modern levity can little understand. An atmosphere which impregnated every living being who came within its scope, and hallowed their lives, so that the guiding and animating spirit of the day, among high and low, rich and poor, ignorant and learned, was the conscientious desire of thinking, acting, and living as God wished and as their better natures approved; of being pure in their purposes and holy in their deeds, as purity and holiness were then conceived; of subduing and controlling their passions, and in all ways being devoutly scrupulous that everything they did was dictated, not by a desire to gratify a selfish impulse nor an ebullition of feeling, but by a conviction of duty under a sense of eternal responsibility to God.

The moral and religious grandeur of the age could not avail, however, for the highest purposes of civilization, in the absence of intellectual vigor and mental growth. Devotion itself made men bigots. Their love of God, unaccompanied by right views of human liberty, induced cruel persecutions. Humanity had no hope in such developments alone, grand as they were, and a new principle began its career, gradually supplanting the first. What does our historian give as the facts of civilization since the century preceding the Reformation, from which time the tendency to individuality has been predominant?

The great kingdoms and empires of the earlier days melted away under its influence. The divine right of kings, and the theory that power sprang from the ruler, gradually yielded to the democratic principle of political equality and the origination of power in the people. Civil liberty became the touchstone of good government, instead of centralization of power and consolidation. General eligibility to office grew into vogue in the place of the ancient mode, which practically limited the selection of statesmen and officials to a privileged class, comprising the largest and most cultured minds of the nation. Freedom, and consequent diversity, in thought, in speech, and in action, became paramount considerations to coercion and resulting uniformity in these respects. The functions of rule were step by step curtailed until they dwindled theoretically, and, to a large extent, in the most advanced countries, practically, into two only--the protection of person and of property. That government is best which governs least, came to be an axiom of political progress; and the paramount purpose of civil organization is beginning to be regarded, not, as under the monarchical sway, the preservation of order, but the liberty of the people.

In ecclesiastical affairs, we see the integrality of the church destroyed under the influence of the Protestant principle of private judgment, one of the first fruits of individuality. We perceive sects gradually subdividing into sects, until, instead of a unity of religious sentiment and a sympathy of religious action under the impulse of a common creed, an innumerable variety of religious denominations came into existence, each embodying different beliefs in diverse articles of faith, and refusing Christian fellowship with the others. In this transition the gain has been great, and the loss has been great. The human soul has been liberated to the light of intellectual truth, and emancipated from the bands of ancient superstition. The blessings of education, culture, mental development, and social expansion, have been accorded to the people. Gloomy asceticism has yielded to more hopeful views of life. Dark and depressing theological dogmas have received more cheerful interpretations; and the design of creation, the nature of man, and the destiny of humanity are seen in more alluring colors. The expectations of the future are no longer made terrible by visions of a dreadful God; but beneficence and goodness smile through all the purposes of a loving Father.

All this is gain, is strength, is progress. But what shall we say of that fierce spirit of religious antagonism, which resulted from the disruption of the unity of the church? Of that decline in power which can only exist by consolidation of effort in sympathy of spirit? Of the loss of that capacity through powerful organization to influence men, to perform vast deeds of benevolence, superintend the spiritual and material conditions of the indigent, provide for the comfort of the poor, check the encroachment of the strong on the weak, and hold community in respectful awe by the force of its moral and religious sentiments? The cultivation of the intellectual faculties released the nations from the domination of a narrow-minded spiritual power; but it caused men to forget, to a great extent, while in the hot pursuit of knowledge, that moral culture is equally as essential as mental. To the intellectual gain, during this period of development, we must add a corresponding moral or religious loss. We miss, in modern life, the ever-present, all-pervading, conscious sense of high individual accountability which directed the thoughts, controlled the feelings, and overshadowed the lives of the children of the former stage of progress. The activities of intellectual and material existence absorb the energy of our era, and leave little inclination and less strength for the cultivation and expansion of the deeper faculties of man's nature. In all that side of religious progress which comes from the inculcation of true ideas concerning God, man, human destiny, and human duty; in all which belongs to the _intellectual_ side of religion, the side which enhances our knowledge of what should be done, we have far surpassed the nations and the people of the past. But in all that pertains to the emotional, the devotional, and especially to the _moral_ side of religion, we are far behind them. The animating spirit of life, under the predominating influence of the religious sentiment, was, as we have seen, a conscientious endeavor to live, in all ways, a life of purity, of virtue, and of implicit obedience to the highest dictates of truth, according to the understanding of truth which then prevailed. To do that which they deemed right, no sacrifice was too great, no labor too arduous, no suffering too severe. The deep, abiding, earnest, controlling spirit of the time, shone bright and glorious through all its ignorance, degradation, and superstition, a warning to our later and more cultured age, that the triumphs of the intellect are not all that is requisite for the final achievements of civilization.

The influence of the individualizing tendency is no more perceptible on the page of history, in political and religious affairs, than in the relations of social life. The gradual advance in political ideas, as relating to the liberty of the people, modified the oppressive trade-caste systems of the older nations, and wholly abolished them in the more advanced. Competitive industry introduced intelligence and self-reliance among the people. The doctrine of the equality of men elevated the spirit of the laborer, and dispersed, to a greater or less extent, as the doctrine made itself felt, that servile veneration which the lower classes paid to the higher; the essential dignity of labor is becoming acknowledged. To all these benefits, there have been, nevertheless, corresponding losses. Competitive industry has developed the mental faculties of the people; but has also left the ignorant and the weak still under the feet of the intelligent and the rich, while the recognition of the doctrine of social and political equality has eliminated from the community those distinctive classes who formerly constituted themselves the supervisors and patrons of the indigent, and the providers for their material wants. It is for this reason that the lowest orders of modern society exhibit relatively a condition of physical misery unknown to the poor of former times. So, while the inherent and native dignity of manhood has cropped out, under the impulse of this same idea of the equality of man, reverence for things to which reverence is due, respect for sanctities of whatever kind, deference to superior worth in any sphere--these and other virtues which belong on that side of truth which consists of the recognition of the inherent _inequality_ of man in mental, moral, and spiritual characteristics, are rapidly disappearing, giving place to that spirit of dead-levelism so peculiarly illustrative of the prevalent sentiment in this country, and so aptly denominated 'Young America.'

It is in the loss of this side of truth, this want of recognition of the inherent inequality in men, that one of the greatest elements of national power has disappeared. That individuals differ in their organization and capacities one from another, and are hence, in this respect, unequal, is a generally accepted truism. From this inequality it results that every man has some sphere in which he is superior to all others, and in regard to the concerns of which he should be the voluntarily recognized authority. But, except in the departments where men are entirely ignorant, and hence are forced to acknowledge the supremacy of others, there is, among the most advanced peoples, scarcely any recognition, of this great truth of voluntary deference to those who are entitled to superiority. Persons of only ordinary capacities, who read the newspaper, but who elsewise have had little time or inclination for study, boldly argue abstrusest questions concerning military methods, political economy, theology, or ethics, with students and thinkers, without the slightest suspicion that they have no _moral_ right to enter into such a dispute, under such circumstances; their true position being that of learners. It is not wholly from a want of knowledge that such errors are committed. Men are mainly aware that _political_ equality does not mean equality of faculties and of functions. This assumption of a parity which has no existence, arises in a large measure from a want of moral power; from a lack of that religious development, so prevalent in the first state of progress, which made it possible to conquer pride, subdue egotism, cultivate humility, defer to superiority, and enabled the individual in all ways to accept cheerfully his proper position in society, and cordially to recognize that of every other, so far as he understood them. Political and social equality emancipate mankind from civil slavery, from social oppression, from the forced domination of assumptive aristocracies, from the pride of rank; they prohibit any imposition of authority which the individual does not willingly accept; but they do not lift one iota of that responsibility which rests upon every human being to honor the truth wherever or whatever it may be. Truth demands that we recognize our superiors, in whatever sphere we may find them, and eagerly avail ourselves of their advantages; that we recognize our inferiors, and give them, if they will accept, of our store. That we in America are no longer coerced into the acknowledgement of an assumed superior class, only renders our obligation of voluntary deference more binding. The selfishness and recklessness which the principle of individuality has developed in its course; the disregard of moral duties which it has engendered, promise only disaster and defeat to our national career, unless speedily counteracted by a development of the opposite tendency.

Finally, it is in the sphere of intellectual growth, with its resulting scientific achievement and material prosperity, that we must look for the greatest results of the period in which the principle of individuality has preponderated. It is needless to undertake to detail these here. Every department of human concern has felt their influence, and advanced under it. Through science, the world in which we live has been unfolded to our vision; the organism we inhabit made known; the history of the past revealed; and the destiny of our future forecast. To science, the offspring of intellectual activity, we owe our increased facilities for travel; the gradually accumulating comforts of life; extended commercial advantages; national growth; social amelioration; increased power over the elements; and rapidly accumulating wealth. To mental development we owe civil freedom, social culture, and religious liberty; commerce, invention, arts, education, enterprise. The principle of individuality still guides the development of our day; science is discovering new resources; and practical applications are introducing new elements of prosperity. The stage of unity has done its work; it gave us great elements of civilization, but not enough. The stage of individuality, now swiftly advancing to its close, has furnished magnificent contributions to progress, but could not achieve the highest point. We are passing into a third era, which shall combine the good results of each, and ultimate a nobler form of individual and social life.

Here, then, we may pause in our investigation and ask the conclusion. Have intellectual truths been more important in the past progress of the world than moral ones? Let us sum up. We have seen that the early ages of the world were dominated by the principle of unity; that during its career the moral agencies preponderated, while the intellectual were subordinated; that society, under the influence of these agencies, developed to a higher degree than subsequently certain elements, such as political order, national stability, religious sympathy, moral responsibility, associative labor, deference, reverence, and others, absolutely essential to the highest well-being of a nation; that these elements, however, in the absence of those of an opposite or counteracting nature, had a morbid rather than a healthful action, and kept humanity in darkness and stagnation, being inadequate to all the requirements of social progress; that a new development then began, under the impulse of a new and opposite principle, which evolved precisely those tendencies the want of which had prevented the complete realization of the highest purposes of national life; such were intellectual culture, political liberty, social equality, religious freedom and others; that in the course of the development of these principles, likewise absolutely necessary to the complete organization of community, those which had been predominant under the operation of the drift toward unity, became dormant; so that the results of the second stage of progression were, practically, the same as those of the first, namely, the evolution of magnificent principles, which in the absence of their counterparts had not a healthful action, and were unavailable for the establishment of the highest civilization; and finally, we have seen, from the nature of the two principles, that neither is adequate, alone, to the inauguration of a true social order, neither to develop the indispensable requisites which belong to its opposite, but that in every harmonious organization both must be present, mutually functioning, interblending, and expanding.

This, then, is the answer: The moral agencies have tried to secure the highest social state without the aid of the intellectual, and have failed. The intellectual agencies have sought to secure the same object without the aid of the moral, and have likewise failed. There is no possibility of establishing the _desideratum_ without the full and uninterrupted play of the moral faculties; no possibility of establishing it without the full and uninterrupted play of the intellectual faculties; both have been equal factors in the history of the past in an isolated way; both will be equal factors in a blended harmony in the history of the future. One is humanity's head, and the other humanity's heart. With the absence of either the nation is not yet come into its birth; it is still an embryo.

In this exhibition of the nature and tendency of the principles of unity and individuality, we have also the means of correcting the error into which Professor Draper has fallen respecting the law of human development. He, together with Mr. Buckle, has failed to perceive that the _static_ forces are as important to human growth as the _motic_. He would reject the fruits of the stage of unity and be satisfied with the splendid achievements of the intellectual era. Dazzled by the brilliancy of this later age he is not conscious that in securing the finer results of our riper civilization, we have left in abeyance the deeper, sterner, and more religious elements of life. He would urge us onward in our merely intellectual career, unmindful of the lesson, which the pages of history logically teach, which the principles we have pointed out unerringly confirm, that intellectual development, religious liberty, civil freedom, social equality, unbalanced and unregulated by the centralization, consolidation, moral force, religious responsibility, and the tendencies which belong to the principle of unity, push irresistibly toward disintegration, and end inevitably in political revolution, national disruption, and social anarchy. Toward that goal the nations are now steadily setting under the operations of the tendency to individuality. In the direction which Dr. Draper points for success and prosperity are only disaster and despair: 'The organization of the national intellect' has been and will be fruitless, unless accompanied by the organization of the national moral power. China has the former in an inferior and stunted way, without the latter, and is fitly described by the historian as passing cheerlessly through the last stage of civil life. Had she been less selfish, had she felt deeply the moral and religious obligation she owed to humanity, China had liberated the intellectual faculties to a complete freedom under the sanctification of the moral agencies, and added to that permanence, which is _one_ of the chief factors of national success, the freedom which is the other.

The 'predetermined order of development' has not destined the peoples of the earth to the melancholy fate of China. The climacteric of the present stage of progress is rapidly approaching, is even now touching with its finger the startled nations. When it shall have passed, the world will enter upon the third and final stage of civil progress, in which the organized power, social order, moral grandeur, religious unity, and coöperative industry of the past epoch will be allied to the civil liberty, social equality, intellectual culture, and practical activity of the present. Under these combined influences humanity will start upon a new career, whose achievements in literature, in science, in art, in religion, in practical activities, will make even the vast accumulations of our modern day seem to the future historian insignificant accomplishments, 'a school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour.'

* * * * *

To the American student of history his own country presents, at the present time, a most mournful and convincing example of the inability of intellectual agencies to secure national stability or individual prosperity in the absence of moral strength. Here education has been general, mental activity great, and literary culture prevalent. Here, nevertheless, during half a century a giant wrong has held paramount sway; dominating the sentiment, dictating the policy, controlling the action of the Government, and, at the same time, bending commercial interests to its purpose, giving the law to public opinion, and directing the destiny of the republic. Not to any want of knowledge has the reign of this tyrant been due. The slaveholding institutions of the South are mainly sustained by men of high mental development and large intellectual culture. The statesmen who staked the freedom of a race against the chance of political honor, were renowned for mental vigor. The people who turned a deaf ear to the cry of the bondmen, are celebrated throughout the world for their intelligence.

The weakness of the nation was not intellectual, but moral. The 'selfish pursuit of material advantages' had conquered, in the slaveowner of the South, and in the mercantile community of the North, the love of equity and the desire of right. Political ambition was stronger among the statesmen of the North, than the instincts of mercy or the sense of religious responsibility. Love of gain weighed heavier with the people of the United States than the love of God or of their fellowmen. In vain the voice of warning has been sounded. In vain has the republic been urged to love mercy and to do justice. The country lay in a moral lethargy, from which no gentle means could rouse it, and the dread thunderbolt of war was launched to smite it into action. Through humiliation and suffering; amid widows' tears and orphans' grief; through struggle and privation; by the stern baptism of blood, the nation is being awakened to its deficiencies, is being called to the development of higher virtues.

This latest lesson of history is solemn and impressive. Fruitlessly shall communities teem with material advantages and wealth; in vain shall peoples increase their industrial resources; futile the universality of education and the liberalizing results of intellectual growth; these shall endure but for a season, as the glitter on the waves, unless the national life is grounded on religious devotion to the highest truth, and is practically active in securing the social welfare of the brotherhood of man.

TREASURE-TROVE.

A day in the heart of summer,
A sky of that glorious hue
That dazzles and melts like the ocean,
In its fathomless, infinite blue!

The topmost leaves of the maple
Are stirred by a wondrous song,
That swells, and dies; then rising,
Still clearer floats along.

Oh, where have I heard that music?
Whence its familiar tone?
The beauty that thrills it, trembles
Not in the song alone:

It dwells in sunsets, that deepen
In the glory and gloom of night;
In waters that glance and sparkle,
In the hush of the lingering light.

Like the waves of a springing river,
That from silver fountains wells;
Higher, and fuller, and sweeter
That liquid melody swells.

Oh, the haunting, dim-shadowed expression,
That sighs on the breathless air!
If ever a soul were in music,
A soul is thrilling there!

That song, with its burden immortal,
I heard it long ago!
I know its every cadence,
That quivers and pulses so:

I claim it, bird of summer!
That wondrous song of thine;
Though thine its tuneful utterance,
Its melody is mine.

Then sing till, tranced in rapture,
The day forgets to wane;
And the winds of heaven are silent,
To hear that magic strain.

Sing till the pain of thy transport
O'erpowers each dying tone!
Thou canst not warble a measure
That is not all mine own.

MATTER AND SPIRIT.

Mr. Editor: In the July number of THE CONTINENTAL, I notice some editorial remarks upon a portion of my article 'Touching the Soul,' which appeared in the June number. For these remarks I am under obligation to you, as pointing out the looseness of my phraseology, whereby I have failed to convey the idea I intended; for which looseness the only excuse must be that my mind was occupied more with the thought than with the expression, and the latter was so absorbed in the former as to have suffered in consequence. For it seems to me that the strictures are due to misapprehension of the position assumed.

To commence with the assumed operation of spirit on the material world, as seen in the action of nature: Does not the theory that the mysterious productive forces are in their own nature spiritual verge somewhat closely upon the dogmas of pantheism? What else than this was the belief of the ancients, which placed a Naiad in every stream and a Dryad in every tree? Does it not draw still nearer to Shelley's theory of a 'Spirit of Nature,' which was his God, creating, shaping, and pervading all things? In a word, does not such a theory, in effect, place a god in every object?

Spirit acts independently of God. And here I would not be misunderstood. For though God, as the Author of all spiritual being, may be said to be the indirect cause of all spiritual action, since, if he had not created it, the action could not have resulted, yet He has created the soul to act upon its own promptings, and entirely independent of Himself, holding it, at the same time, to a strict accountability for all the deeds done in the body. To deny this, is to deny the whole doctrine of freewill agency, and with it that of all human responsibility, unless we go to the other and blasphemous extreme of branding with cruelty and injustice the entire system of revealed religion. In consequence, then, of this independent action of spirit, we see the soul of man constantly departing from its normal state, effecting evil as well as good, and guilty of action for which its Creator can in no wise be held responsible. And upon this simple fact hangs the whole system of future rewards and punishments. If now we consider this force which we have been discussing to be spiritual in its nature, it is not for us to draw the line between it and the soul of man. Spirit, so far as it touches our knowledge or experience, is one and the same thing the world over, differing only in degree of its qualities. If we concede to this force the status of spirit, we must also concede to it that essential characteristic or faculty of spirit, _independent action_; and hence the Creator God could not be said to have any hand whatever in the works of this spiritual force--in other words, in the creation of any of the features of the physical world--further than in the original creation of the spirit which underlies and produces them. But this position is in direct variance with the teachings of Holy Writ, wherein we are told that He maketh every flower to bloom, every leaf to grow, and without Him not even a sparrow falls to the ground. In fact, upon almost every page of the sacred book is recognized and taught the fact of the direct intervention of God, not only in human affairs, but also in every work of nature, however minute and insignificant.

And as another result of this independent action, we should find this spiritual force, as in the case of the human soul, frequently departing from its normal state, deviating from the laws which now seem to control it, and multiplying so-called 'freaks of nature,' abnormal works in the physical world, calculated to derange the comfort of mankind and render all things uncertain and insecure. In a word, it would be in the power of such a force, or combination and opposition of forces, to turn the earth again to its original chaos. With such a belief, then, we must assume that God has delegated the care of the material world to other hands of His own creation, and left the comfort and well-being of humanity at the mercy of another spirit, no wiser and perhaps not even so far advanced in the scale of progress as itself.

But it seems to me that the mysterious productive forces of nature can in no wise be called spiritual. Certainly spirit 'animates, informs, and shapes the universe,' in the sense that all things are created and all agencies are kept in operation by an all-powerful God, who is himself pure Spirit, but in no other sense; for God makes use of certain principles or laws to accomplish all things in this world of ours. That unknown force which vivifies the seed and produces the stalk, the blade, and the ear, which clothes the earth with verdure, and which underlies and induces all the works of nature, is not a thinking, reasoning spirit, like that which renders humanity godlike; but a principle--a law--a mere agency whereby the Almighty effects his designs, which is wholly controlled by him, dependent upon him for its very existence, and which in each individual instance ceases to be with the accomplishment of its end; a principle which humanity cannot comprehend, and with which human spirit can have no sympathy or connection except as it excites wonder and admiration. Under this view all the objects of nature are the products, not of spirit, but of law, which is itself the product of the one great Creative Spirit whereby all things are. Even if we admit that so subtle is the connection between the spirit and the law, the law and the material object, that matter may, after all, be said to be the work of and acted upon by spirit, yet it will be seen that even in this instance, spirit does not act directly upon matter, but only through certain intermediate agencies, of which more anon; while, in the matter under discussion, the direct action of spirit upon matter is assumed by the so-called spiritualists.

Again, in regard to the connection of the soul with the organized frame, nothing is better established than the mutual action and reaction between the mind and body. A volume of truth is contained in the simple and hackneyed phrase, _Mens sana in corpore sano_. A diseased frame is almost invariably accompanied by depression of spirits and a disinclination, if not an absolute disability for profound thought; and, on the other hand, a diseased mind soon makes itself manifest to the outer world in an enfeebled and sickly frame. The merest tyro in medical science recognizes the fact that in sickness no medicine is so effective as cheerfulness, hope, and a determined will; while not unfrequently the direst evil against which the physician has to contend is despondency. And many other instances might be given of this mutual action, which are unnecessary in this connection, since the point is conceded.

Yet, as regards the outer world, it is nevertheless true that the soul cannot directly perceive material objects, but only through the agency of the physical senses. In the matter of sight and sound, the atoms of the elastic medium must first make a material and tangible impression upon the eye and ear, which impression is conveyed by the nerves to the brain, where all human knowledge of the mystic process ceases. We only know that there is an intimate connection between the nerves and the mind established in the brain--which is the fountain head of both--whereby the mind receives this subtile impression and thereby becomes cognizant of the object which is its original cause. The same thing is true of all the other senses. Destroy now any one of these bodily senses, and the soul at once becomes dead to all that class of impressions which before were conveyed through that medium. Destroy the sight, and the mind can have no cognizance whatever of material objects save through the sense of touch--for our knowledge of matter through the senses of hearing, taste, and smell, is one of experience alone, which, aided by sight and touch, has taught us in the past that where sound, taste, or odor exist, there must be matter to produce these impressions. Destroy, then, if it were possible, this sense of touch, and our absolute perception of objects is entirely lost--the connection between the outer world and the perceptive faculties of the mind is dissolved forever. The truth of this position is seen in the fact that in a swoon, when all the senses are benumbed, the mind is utterly unconscious of its surroundings.

Again, to go to the other end of the chain--admitting that the force which resides in the material points and produces the vibration in the elastic medium is spiritual in its nature, do we not find that this force never produces an impression upon the senses, and through them upon the mind, except through the intermediate agency of a material object? The object itself must exist before the force can act, and hence arises our confidence in the evidence of our senses. Were it otherwise, indeed, our whole life would be one of uncertainty, of innumerable deceptions, a mere wandering about in a mist of delusions worse than those of a maniac. And if this force could act upon our perceptions without a material point in which to reside, is it not reasonable to suppose that it would occasionally so do, and that we should sometimes perceive effects for which we could find no cause in the material world--no connection with matter? Yet in the whole range of human experience no such thing is known. Even the phenomena which we call optical illusions arise from certain derangements of the atomic particles of the medium through which the impression is conveyed.

From this course of reasoning two plain deductions arise, either of which is disastrous to the spiritualistic theory. For if we deny, as I have done, that this hidden, mysterious force is spiritual in its nature, we have in all our knowledge and experience no _instance_ of the direct action of spirit upon matter. While, if we _acknowledge_ that fact, we have still no instance of spirit so acting upon the medium through which we receive our physical perceptions as to produce an impression through the senses upon the mind, without the intervention of a material point.

Is it reasonable, then, to suppose that in this our age, for the first time, a single solitary manifestation of this supernatural power should occur, as claimed by the spiritualists, unaccompanied by any analogous contemporary or corroborative fact of the same or of a different nature? To admit this is to admit one of three things: 1st, that both the physical senses and spiritual constitution of humanity have undergone a sudden and wonderful change; 2dly, that the Almighty has entirely altered his mode of communication with mankind; or, 3dly, that the whole world of spirits has been let loose to wander at will over the universe and space!

But admitting, as all must do, that there is in each individual human organism an intimate and mysterious connection, through the nerves and brain, between the spirit and the senses, the fact that this is the only known connection, direct or indirect, between matter and spirit, seems to me to argue that there is no other perceptible one. For, if there were any such, designed in any way to affect our perceptions, mental, moral, or physical, would it not, in some one of its phases, have been made manifest through all the past ages of the world? That such a connection has never been discovered is proof sufficient that no such was ever intended by the Supreme Being to affect mankind in any way, _unless_ we admit that the spiritual and religious necessities of mankind, and, in fact, the very constitution itself of human spirit, are entirely different from what they have been in the ages gone by, and require not only a different pabulum, but also a different mode of dealing at the hands of the Almighty: in a word, that the very essence of religion is progressive.

If these positions be correct, the discussion is narrowed down to the consideration of the relations of the spirit as connected with the organized frame. And this brings us to another very natural deduction.

Every schoolboy knows the story of the wonderful clock whose inventor was blinded by the order of his sovereign, that he might not be able to repeat his work for any rival power; and how, many years afterward, when the memory of his person had passed away from those who had known him in his younger days, he groped his way back to the scene of his former labors, and, guided by a lad to the tower which enclosed the already famous work of art, under pretence of listening once more to its chimes, he suddenly, with his scissors, severed a single small wire, and the wonderful performances were closed forever. No artist thereafter could be found to restore the work, for none other than the inventor was acquainted with its mechanism, or could discover the secret of its operation. And so it remained a silent monument to the ingratitude of a sovereign and the revenge of a victim of the most barbarous cruelty. And yet the principle was still there uninjured, and as capable of operation as ever before, yet forever dead to that complicated mechanism, since the single connecting rod was severed which bound the idea to its only means of action--the immaterial to the material--the soul to the body. The mechanism too was as perfect as ever, in all its constituent parts, but forever silent and inoperative from lack of connection with the idea upon which it depended. Side by side lay the principle and its means of manifestation, separated only by the infinitesimal portion of space which divided the parts of the broken wire, yet as effectually separated as if worlds had rolled between them. Unite again these slender fragments, and both would again spring to life, unimpaired in their workings, and as brilliant as ever; but without this restoration both must remain forever dead.

Even such is the connection between the soul and body. A system of slender wires--more slender by far than the most attenuated thread of human construction--connects the more than ethereal spirit with the wonderful mechanism of the human body. And so long as this intimate connection is maintained intact we have the living, breathing, reasoning being, the image of his Creator, the most wonderful manifestation of Almighty power. But once these slender wires are parted, and the soul separated from the body by death, the relation of that man's spirit with the material world is dissolved forever. The senses of the body are the only medium through which the soul can act upon or receive impressions from the world of matter, and between them and it, once so intimately associated, there is now a great gulf fixed--the gulf which separates time from eternity. Henceforth the body, deprived of the lifegiving principle, its end accomplished, which was only to serve as a temporary dwelling for the soul in its time of trial and probation, goes swiftly to decay, and returns to its original dust. But the soul lives on for another world and a different stage of existence, entirely free from the trials and sufferings and sorrows of this. Its mission here is fully accomplished, and it has nothing further to do with the material. Only that Almighty Power which created it can restore its association with a perception of matter, and that by reuniting the broken chord--the silver chord which bound it to its prison walls of clay. Henceforth it is to deal only with pure spirit and as pure spirit; it has a nobler destiny before it, and higher and more glorious objects to employ its powers and engross its emotions and affections than any that earth can afford; and to maintain that it can again return and mingle in the affairs of a sordid world is to degrade it from its new and more glorious eminence--to drag it down from the sublime, the eternal, and the godlike, to the insignificant, the ephemeral, and the human.

Yet it is not to be assumed that matter and spirit are _opposed_ to each other in any other respect than that of constitution--of construction, if the term is allowable. As in color white and black are the opposite extremes of a long line of causes and effects, and as one is the synonyme for utter absence of the other, so, and so only, are matter and spirit opposite poles to each other; and we frequently use the terms ethereal, _spiritual_, to denote the strongest contrast to the substantial, the material. And so, in just the degree in which any object departs from the substantial and lacks the properties of the material, do we say that it approaches the spiritual. Yet, even as in nature we find not only objects, but even forces, of entirely different and even opposite origin and construction working in perfect harmony, so matter and spirit may exist together, and work in harmony, though acting independently of each other, and incapable of producing upon each other what, for lack of a better word, we may call physical effects.

It was not attempted, in the article referred to, to disprove the phenomena of spiritualism by the above mode of reasoning, but simply to deny and disprove the intervention of the supernatural in their origin--to show, in fact, that disembodied spirit can by no possibility have anything to do with their production. That the phenomena certainly exist is not to be denied, and the only question which puzzles the philosophical mind of the age is whence do they arise. If these manifestations are due to the tricks of legerdemain, it is certain that the jugglery is so cunningly devised and skilfully executed as hitherto to have baffled the detective ingenuity as well as the deep wisdom of the most profound minds of the age. Philosophy is no nearer the solution of the question than at the beginning; yet as the process of inquiry goes on, there is little doubt that the investigation will develop the little knowledge now possessed, and perhaps bring to light new facts in regard to the relation between matter and spirit as it exists in the body. Possibly it may some day, in the far future, be discovered that these phenomena are due to some at present undiscovered connection between the mind and will of the medium and the material objects of his immediate surroundings. At present man's knowledge of the properties and workings of the spirit within him is infinitesimal in quantity and degree, and, if this inquiry shall, by making humanity better acquainted with its immortal part, open new paths of research to human intellect, and add to the world's comparatively slender stock of knowledge of spiritual things, or of the natural forces which are constantly working around and within us, then will spiritualism, with all its errors and its dangerous tendencies, prove to have been one of the blessings of this age.

And, in passing, it may be well here to mention an incident, for the truth of which the writer can vouch, and which may, perhaps, throw some light upon this vexed question, or give a clue to some earnest searcher into the cause of this mystery.

A gentleman, being for the first time in his life in the city of Cincinnati, where he had not a single acquaintance, and having long been anxious to test this spiritualistic second sight, on the evening of his arrival muffled himself closely and attended a 'circle.' Summoning the spirit of a distant relation long deceased, he inquired first into his name, age, and residence; all of which were given correctly. Not a little startled with this result, he proceeded with his inquiries, and elicited the following information in regard to his family, viz.: that two of his brothers, named George and Henry, died before his own birth; that of these two George was the elder, but Henry died first. Astounded at the accuracy of these replies, he waited to hear no more, but at once left the circle, with his own faith quivering in the balance.

On returning to his home, he related these circumstances to an elder sister, within whose recollection the birth and death of these children had occurred. She listened attentively to the close, and then quietly informed him that both the spirits and himself were in error, for that Henry was the elder and George died first. As these questions of age and date were the strongest points made by him in his spiritual consultation, and the points most relied upon to test the accuracy of the replies, this revelation at once upset all his doubts and fears, and restored him again to the faith of his fathers. He himself had always believed the facts to be as he had heard them from the medium, they having, by some means, been reversed in his mind in the absence of any other knowledge in the premises than that derived from hearsay, and that too long gone by.

Now, in this instance, the mind of the medium was clearly _en rapport_ with that of the inquirer, and hence all the errors of the latter had been closely followed. The facts were given not as they really were, but as they existed in the mind of the inquirer. In other words, his mind was read by the medium as an open book. And while, in this case, this close copying of error at once precluded the idea of supernatural agency, the facts are interesting as furnishing a new line of inquiry, by showing that, in this instance at least--and if in this, why not in others?--the phenomena of spiritualism were closely allied to those of clairvoyance and mesmerism, and that the path of investigation into all these mysteries may be pursued by one and the same course of reasoning.

But whether the cause of these mysteries is to be found in jugglery, in some subtile connection between mind and matter, in animal magnetism, or in any other of the thousand new branches of natural or mental science, it must in the end be found--if found at all--to depend upon purely natural laws--laws fixed and undeviating in the very constitution of things, and which would have worked as well a thousand years ago as to-day. The supernatural is entirely excluded from the investigation, for that is a world beyond humanity's ken, into which no mortal may peer. If the world of disembodied spirits have any connection whatever with these wonderful and mystical phenomena, the question must ever remain as perplexing and mysterious as it is to-day.

But human intellect is progressive. Age after age brings man nearer to the comprehension of the myriad wonders that surround him, though he must ever remain, while fettered to the earth and blinded by the body, unable to grasp and comprehend the Infinite. And the time will come, perhaps not in this age, nor even in its successor, when this perplexing problem shall be solved, and the hidden truths of to-day be as clear as the noonday sun.

And if not here, then hereafter. Ah! that hereafter! how much of spiritual knowledge it involves! how much of manifestation of eternal truth and clearing up of mysteries! Into what a sea of knowledge does the spirit glide when it departs from the body! Every wave in that illimitable ocean of space is freighted with wisdom, every sound is the tone of undying truth, every breath is redolent of divine wisdom. We wonder now at the wisdom of the sages of our own and of ages gone by--at the learning, the profundity, the astonishing acquirements of the Newtons, the Lockes, the Bacons, the Franklins, and the Humboldts. But when we shall stand, in all the nakedness of pure, unfettered spirit, within the confines of the spirit land, and gaze with all the clearness of unveiled spiritual vision upon the wonderful mechanism of the universe and of the spirit world; when we see--as we shall see--laws and principles, and even abstract truths, as plainly as we now look upon the material objects around us; when, indeed, nothing shall be hidden from our view, and questions which are now too intricate for the wisest minds to solve, and others which are now too profoundly mysterious for human intellect to comprehend or even conceive, shall seem as axioms which need no argument, and which a child can perceive; when, finally, the mysteries of God himself are revealed to our progressive souls, then how contemptibly insignificant will appear the learning of the wisest of earth's sages! how infinitesimal the wisdom of Solomon himself! For to such knowledge we must and shall attain; knowledge wisely barred from our attainment in this earthly existence, lest in our presumption we should rebel against God, and, like Lucifer of old, endeavor to make ourselves equal to Him who is the Author of our spiritual being. Yet in every soul is implanted a yearning for this forbidden knowledge, an undying thirst, which can never be satiated in this life, for but a single draught of that wisdom and truth which flows like a sea about the great white throne. And it is this which makes me comprehend how even an unregenerated soul--and how much more the Christian--can long for that which we call death, but which is but the initiation into the mysteries of the Beyond. It is this which, even aside from religious aspirations and fears, wraps our departure in an awful sublimity. To die that we may KNOW--to give up the transitory, the perishing, the earthly, that we may grasp the all-enduring, the imperishable, the divine; to pass from blindness to far-stretching, unimpeded sight! to be able at a single glance to count the very stars of heaven, and to see the network of laws which bind them in their places, and control, not only their motions, but the minutest particulars of their internal organism; and, above and greater than all, to comprehend the relation between the soul and its God. Here is an existence worthy of spirit which is the image of its God--an existence which will give full scope for the exercise of those faculties which can only act so feebly here--the only existence for which any soul should pine. Strange that humanity should so shudder at the thought of death! And stranger still, that the searcher for wisdom should not seek it in the preparation for that future life where alone true wisdom can be gained.