12 THE PHENOMENON OF 



series are always less fit than the higher, in which it is 

 stamped more plainly and completely. Thus in the 

 Ornithorynchus the type of the Mammal is so imperfectly 

 and aberrantly represented, that doubt could long exist 

 whether it belonged to the series of the Mammalia at all, 

 and the flowers of the Cycadese are so little like a flower, 

 that it was only after much comparative study that the 

 conviction was arrived at, that these plants actually belong 

 to the commencement of the series of Flowering plants 

 (Phanerogamia). If we apply this mode of examination 

 to Nature as a whole, as the developmental series in- 

 volving all the subordinate series, if we here also seek the 

 solution of the problem, at the term of the development, 

 we are most distinctly directed to the completion of the 

 development of Mind as the destination of the whole pro- 

 cess, becoming visible at the highest stage of natural life. 

 The mind which becomes developed in Man, is not fitted 

 together, with the physical organism, from without, for we 

 behold its evolution indicated in the lower stages of 

 natural life, especially in the Animal kingdom; the 

 spiritual life is rather the purest and most refined repre- 

 sentative of the fundamental life, which we meet as 

 natural life in the preceding stages. We may say of 

 Mind, that it is the youngest, and yet the oldest, existence 

 in nature, destined to attain in its last age, its eternal 

 youth, the freedom fitted to its essential nature. Rising 

 from the groundwork of Nature bearing and supporting 

 them, the spiritual Rejuvenescences in the history of Man 

 strive towards this aim of internal vital emancipation, 

 driving the mind out of every senility, every fetter of 

 time, to soar upward in a new flight of life. 



Thus is our own history connected with the history 

 of Nature. The thought of Rejuvenescence in Science, 

 Church and State, now again moves nations, and 

 meets us in the most varied efforts, in ways crossing one 

 another in manifold directions. As yet, alas, we have 

 become acquainted almost solely with the negative side 

 of these efforts, the Destructive ; but in the eyes of the 



