223 



Article X. 



The Kingdoins of Nature, their Life and Affinity ,* 

 by Dr. C. G. Carus. 



From the Zeitschrift filr Natur imdHeiUcu7ide, Band i.Hefte i. Dresden, 1819. 



VV HEN man awakes from that state in which he is but the passive 

 recipient of impressions from the external world, and when therefore, in- 

 stead of reposing in the consciousness of his increasing in strength and 

 stature and exhibiting a reciprocity of bodily action of various kinds 

 with surrounding objects, he feels the spirit, the infusion of the breath of 

 God, in motion within him, he is powerfully impelled to endeavour, by 

 bringing the relations between the spirit within and the phsenomena 

 without into a clear point of view, to obtain a clearer knowledge of him- 

 self. This desire has its origin in a most distinct conviction that without 

 such knowledge no real harmony, no true internal equilibrium can be 

 conceived to exist in man, and that nature and he must therefore stand 

 as two eternally separated beings. But a feeling that things are sepa- 

 rated which at the same moment exist in and through each other, is 

 totally incompatible with that internal repose which, as we ourselves 

 are one, is to be found not in the sense of separation but in the con- 

 sciousness of unity. In this fact we clearly see what it was that gave 

 birth to those speculations, by means of which it was sought for so 

 many ages, sometimes with more and sometimes with less sincerity and 

 freedom, to ascertain the relations between the phsenomena of nature 

 and the laws of mind. In those speculations, however, we have occasion 

 to observe, how frequently that which stands forth in us most plainly and 

 undisguisedly, and w hich for that reason should be supposed discernible 

 and known at the very first, was exactly the least heeded and last dis- 

 covered. It was, no doubt, owing to this circumstance, that many a 

 truth which presented itself almost unveiled to the pure and unsophis- 

 ticated feeling of the genuine children of nature remained a hidden 

 mysterj' to the sages of mankind. 



In order to avoid such errors it is particularly important that we 

 should give a general and exact definition of the terms proof and explci' 

 nation. Now to explain is but to consider a phaenomenon in the clear- 

 ness of a superior light, and to prove is but to trace a subordinate 

 proposition up to a higher, or rather to a primary truth. The supreme and 

 one, which is alike the foundation of nature and mind, can therefore 

 no more be proved or ex[)lained than the splendour of the sun can 

 be increased by means of some tcrrcstiial ligiit. On the contrary, the 



