44 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



same rocks ; for while it will be readily admitted that fresh floods 

 have been continually flowing over the precipice, and fresh plants 

 springing up in the surrounding soil, it must be remembered also that 

 the rocks have been also wearing away above, while a deposit of 

 fresh particles is being continually made by the water below. Yet in 

 all these mutable things — and nature is equally mutable all through — 

 the Invariable in type is to be easily traced, for that does exist even 

 more definitely than the very mutation which we see. The idea of a 

 waterfall is the invariable result which the fall of an ever-renewing 

 flood, — the dispersion of an endless succession of drops, — the roaring 

 and foaming of particles which never remain an instant in the same 

 position, convey to the mind ; so that out of a series of effects we gain 

 one thought, which may be called the thought of nature inherent to 

 this particular phenomenon. There is no animal, plant, mineral, or 

 gas, but is passing through a succession of changes, growth, decay, 

 dissolution, recombination ; yet each one has a permanent existence 

 by virtue of the thought which it represents, because the laws of na- ' 

 ture are constant ; and however fleeting and fading the forms of the 

 world, the idea of creation is continually reproduced, and through the 

 medium of the ever-changing material, the unchanging and eternal 

 spirit is to be seen. 



The moment we arrive at this stage of thought, we perceive how 

 hollow are those assertions of the superiority of matter, — how vain 

 those endeavours to disprove the existence of mind, over which so 

 many have wasted their lives, hopelessly forswearing the very intel- 

 lect which by its partial views led them into a complexity of errors. 

 Before this fact the very earth passes into the condition of a shadow ; 

 and beyond the almost intangible forms of material existence lies a 

 thought more solid than the adamant, — a thought which operates 

 silently, and finds utterance and representation in that world of 

 change which lives only to embody the idea of permanence. The 

 flower, the tree, the cloud, the sunbeam, the granite rock, have no ex- 

 istence but as letters in the alphabet of nature. As letters in an 

 alphabet, they are woven and interwoven into syllables and words, 

 and as letters of an alphabet again displaced to enter into new com- 

 binations. As letters^of an alphabet they exist also, not for themselves, 

 but as elements through which Intelligence is spelt into expression, 

 and thought fashioned into visible form. What is the flower but an 

 assemblage of tissue, which is again but an assemblage of gases. 



