ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 79 



to some fatal misapprehension on our own part of the 

 real laws and conditions which govern our life, and 

 which our wise men and philosophers have not yet dis- 

 covered for us ; how far the final fact be due to these 

 singly or in combination, and how far we may hope to 

 escape from the consequences of some of them, are ques- 

 tions which will engage our attention hereafter. For the 

 present, it need only be said that probably all the above- 

 named causes, in addition to the weakness of our nerves 

 and the want of firmness and solidity in the physical 

 texture and basis, have co-operated in the final result. 

 Together, if not in turn, they have assisted to "put 

 rancours in the vessel of our peace," and to greatly spoil 

 our chance of earthly happiness. 



These adverse things have drawn a strange mist 

 before our eyes, which blots out the divine beauty which 

 is else so evident, and spread so lavishly over the whole 

 face of Nature ; they have shrouded the beauty, and 

 quenched the gladness which beauty should bring ; they 

 have broken the contented calm, and the deep and satis- 

 fying peace the peace which the sage enjoys, but which 

 it is the special promise of the life in intellect to give to 

 all her votaries, and which, when realized, is the fairest 

 reward of the devoted pursuit of truth. These things, 

 which between them would almost alone make a heaven 

 on earth, the joy and the peace from the presence and 

 contemplation of beauty and truth, we* have lost them, 

 though near them. For this veil, which hides alike from 

 us the beauty of Nature and of Art, is only drawn aside 

 at certain happy holiday moments, to tantalize us with a 

 great but suddenly vanishing vision of universal beauty, 

 of a heaven revealed near us and all around us, and then 

 suddenly closing upon us again ; a vision most real for 

 the moment, which we would fain prolong for years a 



