NATURE AND HER HARMONIES. 49 



the spiritual or imaginative which he possesses in common 

 with angelic beings. Why, even a coarse-grained Kussian 

 would not resist this conclusion, and, with the vigor of the 

 rude north, finely expresses the idea : 



" I hold the middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth. 



On the last verge of mortal being stand, 

 Close to the realms where angels have their birth, 



Just on the boundaries of the Spirit-Land ; 

 The chain of being is complete in me, 



In me is matter's last gradation lost, 

 And the next step is spirit Deity." 



This chain of being is the Jacob's ladder of the allegory, 

 the rounds of which, form, " principalities and powers in 

 heavenly places," through all the orders of spiritual intelli- 

 gences, lead down to man, resting with him, the link between 

 earth and heaven. We have a perfect and just right to the 

 argument, that the next step is pure spirit, unalloyed with 

 matter angelic being and that there are grades and orders 

 of this being, swelling sublimely up ^o the infinite. Before 

 the discovery of the microscope, the world of the dew-drop 

 the atomic legions ' from the low herb where mites do crawl,' 

 to the myriads of ' far spoomming ocean' and the wide air, 

 were all as far beyond the apprehension of our senses as 

 these spiritual existences now are. 



Yet the most patient investigation has gone to show that 

 the analogies of higher existences hold good in these, and 

 science does not hesitate in the application of these analo- 

 gies to them. Why should they hold good at one end of 

 the scale and not at the other ? Is it because we cannot see, 

 taste, smell, or handle thought and spiritual existences? 

 Neither can we do all this with the atom ; its very being is 

 only arrived at through imperfect instruments ; while the 

 existence of spirit and thought is proven by our conscious- 

 ness, than which there can be no higher evidence. Yet no 

 man in his senses pretends to deny atomic existences be- 



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