174 LIFE IN NATUKE. 



human, but divine, by which this thought of man's 

 present state has found utterance? Driven, by 

 studies which were of nature alone, to the concep- 

 tion of a deadness that had invaded man, and marred 

 his feeling, could I fail to recognize anew, and with 

 a solemn gladness, the truthfulness of words in which 

 the Bible speaks of man, and which affirm so unequi- 

 vocally, so centrally, his want of life ? Must I not 

 have been glad to find that science spoke one lan- 

 guage with that book ? 



Nor with that book only, but with the utterances 

 of men who had never known it. I could not but 

 recall how many times, in ancient literature, the 

 thought had been expressed that this seeming life 

 of ours surely was not, could not be, the Life of 

 Man. Of these utterances it is sufficient to quote the 

 words which Cicero puts into the mouth of Africa- 

 nus : " Yea, they live who have fled from the bonds 

 of the body as from a dungeon ; but your life, as it 

 is called, is death."* 



* " Immo vero, inquit, ii vivunt qui ex corporum vinculis, tanquam 

 e carcere evolaverunt ; vestra vero quae dicitur vita, more est." 

 Somnium Scipionis. 



