24 



he comes and whither he goes. To nature he says, in the words 



of Shelley's " Alastor," 



"I have loved 

 Thee ever and thee only ; I have watched 

 Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps, 

 And my heart ever gazes on the depths 

 Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed 

 In charnels and on coffins, where black Death 

 Keeps record of the trophies won from thee ; 

 Hoping to still these obstinate questionings 

 Of thee and thine." 



But these questionings, these yearnings of the soul, meet with 

 a vague and evasive response. Loving the light and seeking it, 

 the student of nature conies out of the search baffled and sad, but 

 not discouraged. In his attempts to penetrate the outward sem- 

 blance of the numberless objects that engross his attention, and 

 attain the inner and hidden meaning, he finds himself suddenly 

 confronted with the unknown and the unknowable, discovers im- 

 perfections in his knowledge that cannot be remedied, and feels 

 that the aspirations of his soul cannot be realized. Beyond the 

 sensual phenomena of nature, behind this veil of Isis, he beholds 

 forces which dreamily waver before him, and which continually 

 elude his eager grasp. Thus he awakens to a painful conscious- 

 ness of the limitation of his faculties, and to the recognition of a 

 Power vastly superior to himself a Power " past finding out." 

 In this consciousness, and in the feelings of helplessness and de- 

 pendence engendered by it, lies the germ of the religious idea 

 the essence of natural religion. Thus out of the philosophy of 

 nature is evolved the philosophy of spirit, as the flower is developed 

 from the stem. Though unable to grasp the secret idea of nature, 

 though unable to understand the reason and the object of the 

 eternal and infinite play of matter and force around him, he, 

 nevertheless, constantly rises in his pursuit of natural knowledge 

 to grander and still grander conceptions of the universe, to more 

 and more philosophical views of himself as part of that universe. 

 He rises to the recognition of fixed order and immutable law in 

 the moral as well as in the intellectual and physical worlds. He 

 fashions for himself a new morality, based upon a more exact 

 acquaintance with the laws of his organization and his relations 

 to the animate and inanimate nature about him. 



