22 



KNOWLEDGE . 



[JcLT 11, 1884. 



in the fancy, wliich will certainly be clear enough. I shall 

 desire no more of the fair sex, than that they will peruse 

 this system of jjliilosophy, with the same ap)jlication that 

 they do a romance or novel, when they would retain the 

 plot, or find out all its beauties. It is true, that the ideas 

 of this are less familiar to most ladies than those of ro- 

 mances, but they are not more obscure ; for at most, twice 

 or thrice thinking, will render them very per.'^picuous. 



I have not composed an airy system, which has no founda- 

 tion at all : I have made use of some true philosophical 

 arguments, and of as many as I thought neoessaiy ; but it 

 falls out very luckily in this .subject, that the physical ideas 

 are in themselves very diverting; and as they convince and 

 satisfy reason, so at the same time they present to the 

 imagination a prospect which looks as if it were made on 

 purpose to please it. 



When I meet with any fragments which are not of this 

 kind, I put them into some [iretty strange dress : Virgil 

 has done the like in his " Georgicks ; " when his subject is 

 very dry, he adorns it with pleasant digressions : Ovid has 

 done the same in his " Art of Love ; " and though his 

 subject be of itself very pleasing, yet he thought it tedious 

 to talk of nothing but love. My subject has more need of 

 digressions than his, yet I have made use of them very 

 sparingly, and of such only, as the natural liberty of con- 

 versation allows: I have placed them only where I thought 

 my readers would be pleased to meet with them ; the 

 greatest part of them are in the beginning of the book, 

 because the mind cannot at first be so well acquainted with 

 the principal ideas which are presented to it; and, in a 

 word, they are taken from the subject itself, or as near to 

 it as is possible. 



I have related nothing concerning the inhabitants of the 

 several worlds which may seem fabulous or chimerical ; but 

 have said whatever may be reasonably thought of them ; 

 and the visions which 1 have added have some real foun- 

 dation ; what is true and what is false are mingled together, 

 but so as to be easily distinguished. I will not undertake 

 to justify so fantastical and odd a com])Osition, which is the 

 principal jioiut of the work, and yet for which I can give 

 no very good reason. 



There remains no more to be said in this place to a sort 

 of people who, perhaps, will not be easily satisfied, though 

 T have good reasons to give them ; but that the best which 

 can be given will not satisfy them. These are the scrupu- 

 lous persons who imagine that the placing inhabitants any- 

 where but upon the earth will prove dangerous to religion. 

 1 know how excessively tender some are in religious mat- 

 ters, and therefore I am very unwilling to give any oflence, 

 in what 1 publish, to people whose opinion is contrary to 

 that I maintain. But religion can receive no prejudice by 

 my system, which fills an infinity of worlds with inha- 

 bitants, if a little error of the imagination be but rectified. 

 When it is said the moon is inhabited, some presently fancy 

 that there are such men tliere as ourselves ; and priests, 

 without any more ado, think him an Atheist who is of that 

 opinion. None of Adam's posterity, cry they, ever tra- 

 velled so far as the moon ; nor were any colonies ever 

 planted in that region. I grant it. The men in the moon 

 are not the sons of Adam. And here again theology 

 would be puzzled if there should be men anywhere 

 who never descended from him. To say no more, this is 

 the great difliculty to which all others may be reduced ; to 

 clear it by a larger explanation, I must make use of terms 

 which deserve greater respect than to put into a treatise, 

 so far from being serious as this is. But perhaps there is 

 no need of answering the objection, for it concerns nobody 

 but the men in the moon ; and 1 never yet affirmed there 

 are men there. If any ask what the inhabitants are, if 



they be not men t all I can say is that I never saw them ; 

 and it is not because I have seen them that I speak of 

 them. Let none, however, think that I say there are no 

 men in the moon purposely to avoid the objection made 

 against me, for it appears it is impossible there should Vje 

 any men there, according to the idea I have framed of that 

 infinite diversity and variety, which is to be observed in 

 the works of nature. This idea runs through the whole 

 book, and cannot be contradicted by any jthilosopher. 

 Nay, I believe I shall only hear this objection started by 

 such as shall speak of these discourses without having read 

 them. But is this a point to be depended on t No, on 

 the contrary, I should more probably fear that the oVjjection 

 might be made to me from many passages. 



FOSTENELLE. 



DREAMS: 



THEIR PLACE IN THE GROWTH OF PRIMITIVB 

 BELIEFS 



Br Edward Clodd. 



iv. 



TTIHE artificial divisions which man in his pride of Ijirth 

 X made between the several classes of phenomena in the 

 inorganic world, and also between the inorganic and the 

 organic, are being swept away before the Urger knowledge 

 and insight of our time. Indeed, it would seem that the 

 surest test we can apply to the worth of any kind of know- 

 ledge is whether it adds to or takes from our growing con- 

 ception of unity. If it does the former, we cannot over- 

 throw it ; if it does the latter, then is it science " falsely so 

 called." 



That notable doctrine known as the correlation of 

 physical forces,' or the convertibility into one another of 

 heat, light, electricity, chemical affinity, ic, each being a 

 mode of manifestation of an unknown energy which 

 " lives through all life, extends through all extent," has 

 its counterpart in the correlation of spiritual forces. 

 Varied as are the modes of expression of these, that variety 

 is on the surface only. Deep down lies the one source that 

 feeds them, the one heart to whose existence their 

 pulsations witness. All primitive philosojihies, all reli- 

 gions •■' that man did ever find," are but as the refractions 

 of the same light dispersed through different media ; are 

 the result of the speculations of the same subject, allow- 

 ances being made for what the astronomers call ]iei'Sonal 

 equation, upon like objects. And, therefore, in treating 

 of the nature and limitations of man's early thought 

 concerning his surroundings, whether these be the broad 

 earth bathed in the sunshine, or swathed in the dark- 

 ness, or the sounds that come from unseen agents, the 

 sight of spectral visitants of whom he cannot have touch, 

 and out of which are built uj* his theories of the invisible 

 world ; the reader may find reference to the same condi- 

 tions which were shown in former papers to give birth and 

 sustenance to primitive myth. The same fantastic con- 

 clusions, drawn from rude analysis and associations, and 

 from seeming connections of cause and effect ; the same 

 bewildering entanglement between things which we know 

 can have nothing in common, meet us ; and the same scien- 

 tific method by which is determined the necessary place 

 of each in the advance of man to truth through illusion is 

 applied. 



The illustrations of the vital connection which the 

 savage assumes between himself and his name show how 

 easy is the passage from belief in life inhering in every- 

 thing, to belief in it as capable of power for good or evil. 

 This can be shown by illustrations from more tangible 



