INTRODUCTION. Xlll 



Such were the creations of the far-searching mind in its 

 early consciousness of the existence of unseen powers. 

 The philosopher picked out his way through the dark 

 and labyrinthine path, between effects and causes, and 

 slowly approaching towards the light, he gathered 

 semblances of the great Reality, like a mirage, beautiful 

 and truthful, although still but a cloud-reflection of the 

 vast Unseen. 



It is thus that the human mind advances from the 

 Ideal to the Real, and that the poet becomes the philo- 

 sopher, and the philosopher rises into the poet ; but at 

 the same time as we progress from fable to fact, much 

 of the soul- sentiment which made the romantic holy, 

 and gave a noble tone to every aspiration, is too 

 frequently merged in a cheerless philosophy which clings 

 to the earth, and reduces the mind to a mechanical 

 condition, delighting in the accumulation of facts, re- 

 gardless of the great laws by which these are regulated, 

 and the harmony of all Telluric combinations secured. 

 In science we find the elements of the most exalted 

 poetry ; and in the mysterious workings of the physical 

 forces we discover connections with the illimitable world 

 of thought, in which mighty minds delight to try their 

 powers, as strangely complicated, and as marvellously 

 ordered, as in the psychological phenomena which have, 

 almost exclusively, been the objects of their studies. 



In the aspect of visible nature, with its wonderful 

 diversity of form and its charm of colour, we find the 

 Beautiful; and in the operations of these principles, 

 which are ever active in producing and maintaining the 

 existing conditions of matter, we discover the Sublime. 



The form and colour of a flower may excite our 

 admiration; but when we come to examine all the 

 phenomena which combine to produce that piece of 

 symmetry and that lovely hue, to learn the physio- 

 logical arrangement of its structural parts, the chemical 



