302 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. X. 



" The Five Gateways of Knowledge." 1 It " was written to 

 help a Sunday School," its first delivery being in Leith, and 

 the substance of the whole being given in one lecture. 

 Some years later, it was offered in a more expanded form 

 in two lectures to the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, 

 (in 1853,) and with slight changes and additions, is published 

 as then delivered. The title has been supposed to be 

 borrowed from Bunyan's town of Mansoul, a quotation 

 from it being used as a motto ; but this motto was an after- 

 thought, and not a suggestive one previous to writing. A 

 reverence for the body, with its wonderful powers and 

 capabilities, and the noble destiny awaiting those sharing 

 the Christian's resurrection hopes, seems the stand-point 

 from which he gazes at those senses by which the soul 

 and body most freely commune together. The strongly 

 prevailing tendency to undervalue the body he regretted, 

 and probably in this " prose poem," as it is fitly called, 

 he has done much to counteract it. The " Five Gateways " 

 may be taken as one of the best specimens of his popular 

 non-scientific lectures ; the pleasure it affords is permanent, 

 and answers to one test of a work of genius, it being 

 equally enjoyed by the young and the old. A cheap edition 

 was speedily called for, and in a second issue there appears 

 a beautiful illustration, by Noel Paton, representing the soul 

 as a child, to whom the senses female figures tenderly 

 and lovingly minister. Mr. George Harvey was the medium 

 by which the request for an illustration was conveyed to 

 Mr. Noel Paton, as is shown by this note : 



"DEAR MAESTRO GIORGIO, You were pleased to say 

 that you would visit Noel Paton the Good, with a letter 

 from me about the coveted design from his wonder-working 



1 Macmillan and Co., London and Cambridge. 



