62 COSMOS. 



I have endeavored, in this section, to nianifest, in a frag- 

 mentary manner, the different influence exercised by the ex- 

 ternal world, or the aspect of animate and inanimate nature 

 at different periods of time, on the thoughts and mode of feel- 

 ing of different races. I have extracted from the history of 

 literature the characteristic expressions of the love of nature. 

 My object, therefore, as throughout the whole of this work, 

 has been, to give general rather than complete views, by the 

 selection of examples illustrative of the peculiar characteristics 

 of different epochs and different races of men. I have noticed 

 the changes manifested in the literature of the Greeks and 

 Romans, to the gradual decay of those feelings which gave 

 an imperishable luster to classical antiquity in the West, and 

 I have traced in the writings of the early fathers of the Chris- 

 tian Church the beautiful expression of a love of nature, de- 

 veloped in the calm seclusion of ah anchorite life. In consid- 

 ering the Indo-Germanic races (using the term in its strictest 

 definition), we have passed from the German poetry of the 

 Middle Ages to that of the highly-civilized ancient East Ari- 

 ans (Indians), and of the less favored West Arians, or inhab- 

 itants of ancient Iran. After a rapid glance at the Celtic 

 Gaelic songs and the recently-discovered Finnish Epos, I have 

 delineated the rich life of nature that breathes forth from the 

 exalted compositions of the Hebrews and Arabs — races of Se- 

 mitic or Aramaeic origin ; and thus we have traced the im- 

 ages reflected by the external world on the imagination of 

 nations dwelling in the north and southeast of Europe, in 

 Western Asia, in the Persian plateaux, and in the Indian 

 tropical regions. I have been induced to pursue this course 

 from the idea that, in order to comprehend nature in all its 

 vast sublimity, it would be necessary to present it under a 

 two-fold aspect, first objectively, as an actual phenomenon, 

 and next subjectively, as it is reflected in the feelings of man- 

 kind. 



When the glory of the AramaBic, Greek, and Roman do- 

 minion, or, I might almost say, when the ancient world had 

 passed away, we find in the great and inspired founder of a 

 new era, Dante Alighieri, occasional manifestations of the 

 deepest sensibility to the charms of the terrestrial life of" na- 

 ture, whenever he abstracts himself from the passionate and 

 subjective control of that despondent mysticism which consti- 

 tuted the general circle of his ideas. The period in which 

 he lived followed immediately that of the decline of" the Sua- 

 bian Minnesingers, '^f whom I have already spoken At the 



