316 THE .ESTHETICS OF 



proves incontestibly there is no colour in Nature, only 

 ether-waves of different lengths ; there are no sounds, only 

 vibrations in the air which succeed each other rapidly or 

 slowly, and so forth ; and yet the brilliant colours of the 

 rainbow delight him, the deep song of the nightingale fills 

 his bosom with longing, he cannot strip from the great pile 

 of soulless masses which lie spread out before him as a 

 landscape, the " golden mist of morning's blush/' through 

 which, more lovely, it whispers to his heart, or in its sub- 

 limity elevates his soul beyond the limits of the world of 

 space ; whither ? he knows not ; only his feelings strike 

 upon the barrier. There must be a Beyond, but where 

 does this lie ? 



Not in Space, not in Time. The paradise of Nations, as 

 of the Individual, is indeed to be discovered in Time, if not 

 in Space. The Eden of Man is even that first original state, 

 wherein he yet has taken no account of his condition, his 

 position in relation to Nature, where God and Nature yet 

 appear as One to him, because he has false conceptions of 

 both, which he deduces from the analogies of his own 

 nature ; conceptions which bring Nature and Divinity nearer 

 together, because they place that too high and this too low. 

 But the place of the Beyond, towards which the cultivated 

 man strives, is defined by no Where and no When. So 

 long and so far as Nature is inexplicable and incompre- 

 hensible to Man, he seeks behind this, which he cannot see 

 through, a spiritual existence like to himself, he endows with 

 life the " Nightside of Nature," he peoples it with Spirits or 

 Spectres of his own creation, which fleet rapidly before the 

 light of Science. On the other hand, the wants of his heart 

 make him seek for a Power, in whose intelligent disposition 

 of events he endeavours to find protection against the sport 

 of Accident or the tyranny of Fate, and this Power he 



