16 COSMOS. 



stage of our communion with the external world, when the 

 enjoyment arising from a knowledge of the laws, and the mutual 

 connection of phenomena, associates itself with the charm of 

 a simple contemplation of nature. That which for a long 

 time remains merely an object of vague intuition, by degrees 

 acquires the certainty of positive truth; and man, as an 

 immortal poet has said, in our own tongue Amid ceaseless 

 change seeks the unchanging pole.* 



In order to trace to its primitive source the enjoyment 

 derived from the exercise of thought, it is sufficient to cast a 

 rapid glance on the earliest dawnings of the philosophy of 

 nature, or of the ancient doctrine of the Cosmos. We find even 

 amongst the most savage nations (as my own travels enable 

 me to attest), a certain vague, terror-stricken sense of the 

 all-powerful unity of natural forces, and of the existence of an 

 invisible, spiritual essence manifested in these forces, whether 

 in unfolding the flower and maturing the fruit of the nutrient 

 tree, in upheaving the soil of the forest, or in rending the clouds 

 with the might of the storm. We may here trace the revela- 

 tion of a bond of union, linking together the visible world and 

 that higher spiritual world which escapes the grasp of the 

 senses. The two become unconsciously blended together, 

 developing in the mind of man, as a simple product of ideal 

 conception, and independently of the aid of observation, the 

 first germ of a Philosophy of Nature. 



Amongst nations least advanced in civilisation, the imagi- 

 nation revels in strange and fantastic creations ; and by its 

 predilection for symbols, alike influences ideas and language. 

 Instead of examining, men are led to conjecture, dogmatize, 

 and interpret supposed facts that have never been observed. 

 The inner world of thought and of feeling does not reflect the 

 image of the external world in its primitive purity. That 

 which in some regions of the earth manifested itself as the 

 rudiments of natural philosophy, only to a small number of 

 persons endowed with superior intelligence, appears in other 

 regions, and among entire races of men, to be the result of 

 mystic tendencies and instinctive intuitions. An intimate 

 communion with nature, and the vivid and deep emotions 

 thus awakened, are likewise the source from which have 



* This verse occurs in a poem of Schiller, entitled Der Spaziergang, 

 which first appeared, in 1795, in the Horen. 



