4:6 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



If this be true, then have we been right to regard the 

 earth as a living revelation, and the dumb trees, and stocks, 

 and stones, articulate language. But like that other Holy 

 Eevelation, the types and symbols here must be devoutly 

 studied, with a pious and earnest zeal. 



Though, perhaps, not very strictly pious in the common 

 acceptation, zeal enough has not been wanting. Uncon- 

 sciously, our translations occasional glimpses of the sense 

 which visited us began to assume definiteness and connec- 

 tion ; the indigested chaos of rude forms to take on order ; and 

 before we were aware, an absorbing idea had possessed us. The 

 result of all our readings might then be summed up under the 

 single head, " life is one linked continuous chain, from, what 

 we can know of God, to the atom ;" and patiently we continue 

 to delve among the rocks, the shells, the bugs, all creeping 

 things, the flowers, the birds, the brutes, and arrowy fishes, 

 to see if we may trace these links distinctly to the bounds of 

 sense. We think we can ! 



Then comes the inquiry if this linked gradation be a ma- 

 terial law, the law of forms, may it not apply also to the im- 

 material essence which in such varied phases constitutes the 

 life the soul of these ? Here we meet with the hoary dog- 

 matisms of the schools, and are rebuffed. Here we veil our 

 eyes in humility before such names as Bacon, Locke, Hume, 

 Beattie, Brown. We reverence these high Priests in the 

 temple of the Most High ! But reverence need not be blind. 

 They say Reason and Instinct are altogether unlike; that 

 Imagination is a mere faculty or adjunct of Eeason, and 

 Eeason is the supremest function of the mind. How dare 

 we think or say otherwise ? We do not do it daringly, we 

 do it humbly, inquiringly. We say we cannot help it that 

 our eyes will not see as theirs have. Our's are poor, weak 

 visuals at the best, and but that there is something curious in 

 the obstinacy of the hallucinations they have persisted in all 

 our lives long, we should not presume to trouble any one 



