46 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES, 



walls of space and time fall down and the soul finds an inheritance of 

 immortality in its merely spiritual existence, needing none of the 

 aids of external reasoning to endow it with everlasting life. 



The philosophy of the beautiful is wrapt up in this fact. Metaphors 

 and poetical images derive their origin and significance from it. The 

 analogies which the imaginative mind readily perceives between 

 objects which to ordinary apprehension seem so dissimilar, are trace- 

 able to the same source. Indeed, strictly speaking, the whole crea- 

 tion is only a bundle of analogies. 



We are accustomed to the recognition of beauty, and seldom pause 

 in our admiration to inquire the source of the beautiful. Yet the 

 beautiful is to be found by the man of science, and is merely the last 

 expression of a series of minute facts. Take the instance of the foun- 

 tain. In this, the rising jet of water consists of a number of particles, 

 all spherical in form, which, as they ascend, gradually increase in 

 breadth, and at last bend over in the form of a parabola and descend, 

 to the basin. The velocity continually decreases from the point where 

 the jet first rushes forth to the point where it bends over in a graceful 

 curve, and it is this decrease of velocity in ascending which gives the 

 column of water its tapering form, — for it always tapers downwards 

 from a broad convex sheet to a thin compressed jet. This downward 

 tapering of the column and parabolic outline of the falling summit 

 are what most readily strike us as beautiful in a fountain, — and these 

 phenomena are simply the result of the opposing forces of the rising 

 jet and attraction of the earth. The prismatic colours and the rich 

 musical tones also combine to complete the harmony, — and thus the 

 idea of the fountain is the result of an assemblage of details, each of 

 which contributes an essential part of the whole. 



Man, too, is a part of this ; his soul is a part of the great soul 

 which pervades nature ; and to every beat of his heart the great heart 

 of the universe answers with a kindred throb. By his relationship to 

 outward things, he is enabled to comprehend them, and in so doing he 

 finds that the laws of the external world are consistent with the 

 thoughts within himself. Does such a conclusion make him dread 

 mortality ? if so, let him trust the history of his soul to faith, which 

 is as much above reason as reason is above the brute matter on which 

 it impresses its speaking image. If the " clodded earth," sending up 

 its breath in flowers, has a soul by which it is united to all the links 

 of diversified being; if man, too, has a soul not merely obedient to 



