63. A word cannot be rendered abstract,' as some contend, by the mere obscuration of its physical meaning, because the essence of the word is still there; and if not recognized, it is the user of the word that is blind to it, not the word that is abstract or metaphysical. It may not be possible to determine the original physical meaning in every case; because in many the root-word is of inaccessible antiquity. But analogy yields more than sufficient evidence to shew that such is the principle of 'abstract' words-and it is this principle which it is alone essential to have developed. The details of mere etymology are quite a secondary matter. Without such an object, the mere grubbing for roots is indeed a trifling and profitless employment. Etymology in its true character can never be anything more than a means to an end. Language, however, it must be clearly understood, is what we find it to be, not because of laborious etymological research, but because it is not possible that it should be anything else. It is one of the results of the nature of things. Etymology steps in as an invaluable auxiliary in the expounding of that nature, and there its function both begins and terminates, except as relates to ethnography, of which science it is one of the most important departments.* 64. It is often supposed that abstract terms do really exist, from the circumstance, indirectly adverted to above, of many words being apparently destitute of any root or foundation whatever. But it is quite certain that no word was ever formed from mere caprice; and equally so that there is not a single term in language that can be strictly called 'arbitrary.' An obscurity here and there as to derivation, proves nothing. If we cannot trace the physical root of such a word as love, for instance, as it exists in our own language, we can find the physical base of its synonyme in some other tongue. So that comparing languages together, and taking them in the aggregate, every abstract term that men use has its physical origin illustrated somewhere. The darkness which may shroud the pedigree of a word in one language, is always compensated for by the clear light that illuminates the history of its equivalent in another. 65. There is a large class of words of ignoble origin, which are also regarded not unfrequently as abstract or arbitrary. We allude to those *6 'Ethnography' or 'ethnology' is the name given to the strictly-modern science which investigates the descent and affinities of the various races of men. It does this by means of inquiries into physical conformation, the influence of climate, the comparison of manners and customs, the remains of ancient art, legends and traditions, and to an immense extent, by comparative language. comprised in the phraseology of the lower orders, especially the vicious, and called 'cant,' or 'slang.' It is a remarkable fact, however, that not one of these words is arbitrary. So far from it, they all admit of being classified with the recognized forms of expression, being either truly onomatopoetic, or as truly metaphorical, or else contracted from existing terms according to the regular usages of speech. Thieves' language,' says Dr. Latham, 'is of even more value in philology than in commerce;' meaning that it shews the spontaneous procedures of the mind with regard to language to be uniform; that whether we study the words of ancient Greece, or those of the vulgar and illiterate of the present day, the same results are continually afforded. It is important also to know, that a large proportion of the current vulgarisms of our language are genuine Anglo-Saxon terms, which refinement has rendered obsolete among all except the uneducated. Let us pass on, however, to the consideration of correspondences. 66. By the term 'Correspondences,' as already implied, are denoted those sublime and eternal relations which exist between the essences of the invisible or spiritual world, and the material objects of the external or natural world, the relations in question being those of cause and effect. The spiritual world is the world of causes; the material world is the world of effects. From the former, therefore, every thing proceeds. Hence whatever organic element or quality exists in man, considered as to his spiritual being, or immortal portion, exists also, correspondentially, in his outward or corporeal and mortal portion, the latter being the result or outbirth and counterpart of the former; while nothing is present in his external being without having its correlative in his interior one. What is spirit in the one, uniformly appears as matter in the other, and vice versa. The lower animals in their varied natures; trees, plants, and flowers; minerals, and all other inorganic bodies, in their various kinds, possess the same definite and immutable relations to the spiritual world, being the direct products or outbirths of essences contained in it. Collaterally, they are associate also with the interior elements of man himself, in whom all nature is thus recapitulated. 6 67. Ascending from MAN, we see that he is not only a ' microcosm,' or 'world in miniature,' but likewise a μukpòs oupavòs, or 'heaven in miniature,' inasmuch as every thing we have referred to, both visible and invisible, is, in its amiable and unperverted character, the counterpart or correspondent of something essentially belonging to God, the Creator of all. It is this which St. Paul means in the celebrated verse where he says, 'the invisible things of God are clearly seen by the things that are made;' and it was the perception of the same sublime truth which made F Milton put into the mouth of the archangel, when discoursing with Adam: What surmounts the reach Of human sense, I shall delineate so, By likening spiritual to corporeal forms As may express them best; though what if earth Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each unto other like, more than on earth is thought?" 68. All things, both visible and invisible, must of necessity be related to the Divine in nature, and be in their essences the correlatives of one another, because all are derived from one unalterable and unmixed source, the true and only 'Central Sun,' for which astronomers may search the material heavens in vain. And how forms of existence apparently so unlike as are minerals, flowers, animals, and the elements of man's inner being, may yet be partakers of essences common to all, though varying in degree and quality, is beautifully emblemed in the structure of a tree. Let the stem be cut across, and we immediately behold the entire fabric arranged in elegant concentric circles surrounding a central column of pith, from which rays of its own substance spread in all directions, and extend to the extreme circumference. These circles are like the various forms of being we have just enumerated. The innermost resemble the constituents of the mind; those next outside, the realm of animals; the next, trees, flowers, and plants; while the last or ultimate of all, constituting the inanimate bark, answer to the inorganic kingdom of stones and minerals. The rays of vital pith which radiate from the centre, permeating the whole structure with itself, are like the essences which, spreading from the Almighty, extend to the extremest verge of his creation, and unite into one family the varied and successive orders of being which they traverse. Things appear unlike, because we are too apt to look only on their outside, which is the throne of difference. To see resemblances, we must look upon the inside. Until men elevate themselves into the full recognition of this lofty fact, the true nature of the universe is hidden from them, and they are like the moles in the dark earth, who know nothing of the flowers and blue sky overhead. And more than this, for, as beautifully observed by Martineau, men will be less servilely detained among things seen, when less indolent in their conceptions of things unseen.' 6 69. The emblem presented in the structure of a tree, is yet further illustrative of the truths we are considering. For the successive rings of wood and bark are made up of three various tissues, differing in their microscopic characters, differing in function, and in importance unequal, though as to presence indispensable; while in every ring or circle the several tissues, from their highest to their lowest forms, are all repeated. And this is just the case with correspondences. In the spiritual world there are three degrees, a highest, a middle, and a lowest. Each of these three has three within itself, of the same relative qualities as the three primary ones, and so on infinitely; for, insatiable as is the variety witnessed in the natural world of effects, in the spiritual world of causes it is unspeakably greater. These causes or essences have their outbirths to a very trifling extent on our own globe, which is but one of myriads,— a mere particle of shining dust, whose kinsmen are countless. For as every starlike body that we behold is unquestionably a seat of life and intelligence, and is different in quality from every other, so must they be occupied by their appropriate ultimates of the essences composing the unseen kingdom. Agreeably, then, to the principle adverted to, in the several kingdoms of nature constituting our own sphere there are outbirths not only corresponding to some part of this infinite variety in the spiritual world, but respondent also to the degrees of the several essences. Hence the order of correspondences, as to their quality, is not a progressive one, commencing with the highest animals, and ending, by gradual descent, with the lowest forms of inorganic matter; but begins, over and over again, with every distinct kind or class of existences, in all of which classes there are therefore both highest and lowest, yet none precisely alike. Thus, while the lamb and the dove hold a high place in the animated world, the rose, the wheat-plant, and the cedar-tree are no less excellent in quality among vegetables, nor are gold and silver, water and precious stones, less excellent among inorganic substances. We, as mankind, see these things but dimly and in small part, because our perceptions are finite. God alone can see them all, and in perfection, inasmuch as to see all science, it takes all humanity. 70. That there is a chain of correspondence such as we have described, stretching from the lowest forms of inorganic matter up to the essences of God Himself, and linked to man throughout its whole extent, is shewn emphatically by the necessity that language should possess such a character, essentially, as to be the same to one mind as to another; for without this there could be no intellectual intercourse. Now we know that language does possess this character. It requires not a word to prove it. It is clear, too, that the minds of men are similarly constituted as to their elements. Their being similarly affected by external objects, though in different degrees, directly implies, therefore, an adequate adjustment of the one to the other. If there were not such an admirable harmony between the scale of the universal human mind, and the scale of universal nature, every man would be wholly unintelligible to his fellows, as in that case they would all use different symbols to denote their emotions. And this is not all. For, as pointed out by Dr. Harris in his Man Primæval,' while it is necessary that the objects of external nature should mean the same things to all minds, which they do by virtue of the law of correspondence, it follows, that as they are the sole source of language, they must not only mean the same things to all men, but the same things to man and to God.' Accordingly, the Scriptures are written entirely in correspondences, this being not only the most admirable, but, in point of fact, the only intelligible medium. For that God should communicate his will to man in a verbal form, it is absolutely necessary that the materials of the language to be employed should have the same significance, substantially, to both. How sublime and striking an illustration, that man is indeed made in the image and likeness of God!' 71. Another, and a most elegant testimony to the intimateness of the relations which subsist between the human mind and the external world, is yielded in the philosophy of that deep love which all men feel for what is called Nature. Were it not for these relations, men would have no affection either for the sublimities of the sea, or of the swelling mountains; none for the solemn and silent woods, filled with solitude as with a presence; none for the beguiling beauty of the shaded pathway by the river; none even for such simple things as pure air and the green fields. But the love of these things is universal. With different individuals it may fill the soul as a yearning passion, or may exist as but one among many feelings: still it is inseparably and beautifully bound up with man's whole being, and is continually productive of new and refreshing enjoyments. And while it thus varies in degree with different individuals, it varies also in the direction which it takes. One mind is most charmed by flowers, another by birds; one delights most in the view of a well-ordered farm, another in rocks and waterfalls; one most loves sweet sounds, another the stars, another trees, another the human form, and so on, infinitely. 72. Why should this be? Whence arises so endless a variety of taste, always resembling in essence, never identical in kind? Is it not that every one of the countless elements of our inner being has its own specific and independent relationship with one or other of the shapes and embellishments of the world outside; and that we love those things best whose spiritual counterparts in our souls are developed in the highest activity and perfection? There can be no other reason:'How can the beauty of material things So win the heart, and work upon the mind, * "Festus.' |