302 THE HUMAN FORM. 



form that we cast to view him, but the imperfections of our form, 

 which as we put them off, the form becomes more sincerely human, 

 and likens nearer to the truth. Hence the way to a divine percep- 

 tion is the rejection of our inhumanity. Moreover by a connection 

 that none can repeal, the man of the senses is married to him of the 

 soul, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. In thought also, 

 every idea has a form, every form has a shape, every shape has a 

 body, every body is a substance; and to sum up all by the same 

 fact, human truth is incarnate. Thus the human form implies the 

 shape of the body, but ninefold flexible, or drawn into perfections 

 of which flesh and blood are but the footstool. 



On this subject we say further, that disembodiment is hateful to 

 man, and the fear of death itself, apart from the love of life, arises 

 from our ignorance that the dead are men. No wonder that we 

 shudder with all our life beside a brink where philosophers teach 

 us that the human form is wrecked. It were weakness not to shrink 

 from the loss of that which is the instrument of all our power. For 

 whatever is strong tends to incarnation. An energetic purpose is 

 at once in the arms and hands, and emboldens their play : whoso 

 crosses it, finds that its missionary is never such tough matter as 

 when his spirit is behind him and within him. A lively thought 

 calls up image after image, and is embodied at once; if the images 

 will not come, there is an end of the thought. A will not only 

 rushes into the muscular system, which is a battalion of arms and 

 limbs, but it rifles resistance for hardness, and plucks out the teeth 

 from steel and stone, to make fresh bellies of strength. A high 

 contemplation in the soul, begins to see heaven only with the up- 

 turned eyes, and to pray in the body as soon as the contemplation 

 is full. A soul is no sooner projected than it begins to build a body 

 for itself. Thus strength clasps and presses body, to beget works 

 as children. Impotence on the other hand engenders with abstrac- 

 tion, and prating philosophies come. 



In returning from this digression, we next meet that activity of 

 mind which begins to work upon the two worlds of spirit and mat- 

 ter with native conceptions of its own. This is the poesy of know- 

 ledge, the sense of nature and things which is born of human reli- 

 gions. And it affirms the personality of its objects ; not only of men 



