106 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°'iS. N»58., Feb. 7.'57. 



we owe the belief in Elemental Spirits, Genii, 

 Nymphs, Sylphs, Fairies, &c., which obtained 

 amongst the Eastern Nations, especially the Per- 

 sians, Arabians, and Jews ; amongst the Greeks, 

 Romans, Celtic and Northern Nations, &c. ; and 

 which was revived in the latter part of the Middle 

 Ages by Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians. 



It would be easy to fill a large volume, merely 

 with references to works which treat of, ©r touch 

 on, this comprehensive and interesting subject : 

 I shall, however, quote but one or two suggestive 

 passages, and conclude my Note with a few re- 

 ferences. 



The admirable Pietist, John Arndt, says : 



" God so disposes and orders things that tlie inferior 

 creatures receive of the superior, and all Nature hangs 

 together as it were in One Chain. And this connexion 

 of Nature and Providence is finely described by the Pro- 

 phet Hosea (ii. 21, 22.) ' It shall come to pass in that 

 day, saith the Lord, I will hear the Heavens, and they 

 shall hear the Earth, and the Earth shall hear the corn 

 and the wine and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel.' 

 In this place the Prophet presents us with the entire 

 Order of Nature, beginning at the First Cause, which is 

 God, &c." — True Christianity. B. iv. ch. iv. 



Southey says, in his delightful Life of Wesley^ — 



" It was the opinion of Wesley that there is a Chain 

 of Beings advancing by degrees from the lowest to the 

 highest point — from an atom of organised matter to the 

 highest of the Archangels : an opinion consonant to the 

 philosophy of the Bards, and confirmed by Science as far 

 as our physiological knowledge extends." — Vol. ii. p. 88. 



As to this "Ideal Chain of Nature," as it has 

 been termed, Professor Sedgwick observes: 



" Independently of any evidence we derive from palse- 

 ontolog}', a conception of this kind is so grateful to the 

 imagination, and is so obviously suggested by the clear 

 gradations of living Nature, that an Ideal Organic Scale 

 has for ages past been a subject of speculation. I profess 

 not to trace its histors' ; but Dr. Johnson tells us that it 

 took its rise among the Oriental metaphysicians and 

 physiologist^. In the former half of last century it was 

 a favourite theme with our moralists and poets. It was 

 adorned by the beautiful prose of Addison, and the glit- 

 tering poetry of Pope ; and it was tortured into the ser- 

 vice of infidelit}' bj' Bolingbroke. Lastly, it was taken 

 up bj' Soame Jenyns in his acute and elegant, but very 

 unsatisfactory, Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. 

 But the links of his Ideal Cliain of Nature were snapped 

 asunder, and its fragments crushed to atoms bj' the 

 weighty and indignant criticism of Johnson, in his Re- 

 view of a Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of 

 Evil. 



"In the hypothetical scheme of the Authors just al- 

 luded to, ' The Universe is a system whose very essence 

 consists in subordination — a Scale of Beings descending 

 by insensible degrees from infinite perfection to absolute 

 nothing; in which, though we mayjusth' expect to find 

 perfection in the Whole, could we possibly comprehend it ; 

 yet would it be the highest absurdity to' hope for it in all 

 its parts, because the beautj' and happiness of the whole 

 depend altogether on the just inferiority of its parts, &c. 

 .... It is moreover highly probable (we are told) that 

 there is such a connexion between all ranks and orders 

 by subordinate degrees, that they mutually support each 

 other's existence; and every one in its place is abso- 



lutely necessary towards sustaining the whole magni- 

 ficent fabric.'"* 



See Mr. Sedgwick's reply to this in the passage 

 which follows. See also Mr. Hugh Miller's Foot- 

 Pinnts of the Creator, pp. 300—304. 



The following selection of references will be ac- 

 ceptable to persons interested in the subject of my 

 Note: 



Charles White. An Account of the Regular Gradation in 



Man, and in different Animals and Vegetables: and 



from the former to the latter. Lond. 1799, 4to. 

 J. S. Duncan's Analogies of Organised Beings. Oxford, 



1831. 

 Taylor's Select Works of Plotinus. Lond. 1817. Introd. 



pp. Ixxii.-iii. 

 Stehelin's Rabbinical Literature. Lond. 1748, vol. i. p. 



164. 

 R. Caswav's Miscellaneous Metaphvsical Essaj'. Lond. 



1748, pip. 51-59. 141. 

 F. M. Van Ilelmont's Paradoxal Discourses. Lond. 



1G85, pt. i. p. 17. 

 J. A. Comenius. Naturall Philosophic Reformed. Lond. 



1G51, p. 239. 

 Boetius. De Consolatione Philosoplii£e. Lib. in. Met. 2. 



9. ; Lib. IV. Pros. 6. Met. 6. 

 Barker's Natural Theology. Lond. 1674, pp. 23. 27. 64. 

 Vaughan's Anima Magica Abscondita. Lond. 1C50, pp. 



8. 11. 22. 

 Hildrop's Free Thoughts on the Brute Creation, pt. ii. 



p. 63. 

 Sir Thos. Brown's Religio Medici, §§ 33, 34. 

 Norris's Miscellanies. Lond. 1717. See his remai-ks on 



" The Porphyrian Scale of Being," at p. 224. 

 Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte der Menscheit. 1784 — 



1791. See b. v. cap. i. A Series of Ascending Forms and 



Powers prevails in Creation; and cap. iii. Powers and 



Forms Progressive. 

 Steffens' Anthropologie, b. ii. p. 6. 

 Coleridge's Aids, 6th ed., p. 85. The Friend, 4th ed., 



vol. iii. p. 133. 

 Morell's Elements of Psychologj', pt. i. pp. 47 — 55. 

 Barton's Analogv of Divine Wisdom. Dublin, 1750, p. 39. 

 Milton's Paradise Lost, b. v. 404—426. 469—512. 

 Young, Night VL 



Pope's Essay on Man, Epist. i. 7, 8. ; iii. 1. 

 Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, b. ii. 

 Thomson's Summer, 289—337. 



In conclusion, I trust that some of your home 

 or foreign correspondents will kindly answer my 

 Queries relative to the Aurea. Catena Homeri, and 

 refer me to some of the chief works in Continental, 

 especially German, literature, in which it has been 

 noticed. Eikionnach. 



P.S. — The anonymous author's scheme of the 

 A. C. H. prefixed to his work, which was acci- 



* Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cam- 

 bridge, 5th ed. Lond. 1850, p. ccxx. 



This explanation of Evil and the Ugly or Unbeautiful 

 in Creation, and this making each link in the Chain a 

 sine qua non, so far as I am aware, formed no part of the 

 ancient doctrine of the Golden Chain of Nature, but arose 

 from the spurious Optimism of the Stoics, developed and 

 exaggerated by our philosophers of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury. That there was a tendency to it in Platonism I am 

 aware, as also that it takes a decided form in the great 

 Plotinus, 



