remember, and act; a reason and a power of will that, by its own permission, leaps to the modulation of thought. That power contains under it the whole content of the term soul, a self-acting, self-directing thinking power; and the analysis of that content gives the faculties of the soul, or those modes of operation, which are called the mental powers. This influx of the substance of the soul, as such thinking power, is all that comes from that source; and the conceit of a genius, dæmon, angel, or any other kind of soul or spirit, accompanying it, lying in behind it, and guiding and directing its operations, other than perhaps "the secret will and grace" of "the greater providence" itself, he would seem to have considered as a visionary invention of the imaginations of men. "Divination by influxion was a notion of like nature, "grounded upon this other conceit, that the mind, as a mirrour or glass, receives a kind of secondary illumination fron: the foreknowledge of God and spirits." 1 And surely, any supposition of revelations of the thoughts, ideas, will, and purposes of God being poured, inspired, or breathed, into this soul from this same direction, and in addition to the soul itself, like a "flowing river," of which the receptive soul is only a sort of "pensioner" and a "surprised spectator," as some think, or as any kind of secondary illumination out of the foreknowledge of God and spirits, can be no less superstitious and absurd than the fantastical vagaries of divination. Soul, indeed, streams into man from a source which is hidden, but his thoughts and visions are his own work. No knowledge of the supernatural world, nor of the ideas, thoughts, purposes, foreknowledge, and providence of God in the universe ever did come, nor ever can come, to man directly in that way, nor by that road; though behind this soul there may continue to be "the law of his secret will and grace," as in the play :— "2 1 Trans. of the De Aug., Works (Boston), IX. 53. 2 Emerson's Essays, First Series (Boston, 1854), p. 244. "K. Rich. All unavoided is the doom of destiny. And the witch says of Macbeth, "He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear.". Act III. Sc. 5. And again, the operation of this same grace may be distinctly seen in the following lines : "Mal. Comes the King forth, I pray you? Doc. Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls, The great assay of art; but at his touch, Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand, [Exit DOCTOR. A most miraculous work in this good king, To th' succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace." - Macb., Act IV. Sc. 3. And in the end, when he has been proclaimed King of Scotland, he concludes his speech thus: -- "Mal. This, and what needful else That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace, We will perform in measure, time, and place." — Act V. Sc. 7. "For we see," says Bacon, "that in matters of faith and religion our imagination raises itself above our reason; not that divine illumination resides in the imagination; its seat being rather in the very citadel of the mind and understanding; but that the divine grace uses the motions of the imagination as an instrument of illumination, just as it uses the motions of the will as an instrument of virtue ; which is the reason why religion ever sought access to the mind by similitudes, types, parables, visions, dreams”: —1 Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice; These poor informal women are no more But instruments of some more mightier member, That sets them on." - Meas. for Meas., Act V. Sc. 1. Bacon clearly saw, that over and above "this part of knowledge touching the soul," there were "two appendices," divination and fascination, under which he appears to have included all the imaginations, vagaries, and waking dreams of oracles, auguries, prophecies, visions and apocalyptic revelations, astrology, divination, natural magic, incantations, and miracle-working (spiritual-rapping having died out for once with the old Montanist schism long before his time); "for," says he, "they have exalted the power of imagination to be much one with miracle-working faith," and "have rather vapoured forth fables than kindled truth." All this was grounded on the conceit "that the mind, as a mirrour or glass, should take illumination from the foreknowledge of God and spirits" (as stated in the Advancement); and the retiring of the mind within itself was the state which is most susceptible of these "divine influxions, save that it is accompanied, in this case, with a fervency and elevation, which the ancients noted for fury." But in his opinion, this divination by influxion, or any direct communication to man out of the foreknowledge of God, or spirits, was a mere superstitious conceit, such as had filled the heated fancies of the ancient Furies. But this part, he continues, "touching angels and spirits I may rather challenge as fabulous and fantastical: "This the very coinage of your brain: This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in." — Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4. 1 Translation of the De Aug., Works (Boston), IX. 61. Not by this way comes the knowledge of God, his thought, his purposes, his will, or his providence in the universe, nor of the duties, ways to happiness, destiny, or future life of man. If he would seek that knowledge, he must address himself to the fore-front view of the boundless universe of God's thought and providence, and by the light to be derived from the study of the laws and nature of thought in his own soul, and by the power of thought which is given him, and the light which it creates and lets be within him, both see and read, in that infinite book of revelation that lies wide open before him, as much as it may be in his power to comprehend and contain. It would certainly be idle for him to attempt to read any more, and absurd to imagine that more could be imparted to him in any way. No further revelation is, or ever was, possible to be made to any man. No greater revelation can be necessary for his use; for, if he will but open his eyes and look into it, if he can but see far enough and deep enough, he may see the whole reflected in his own mind, which "God hath framed as a mirrour or glass, capable of the image of the universal world." According to Bacon's interpretation, besides Mercury, who was the ordinary messenger, Pan, or the universe, was "the other messenger of the gods ["alter Deorum Nuncius"]; and this was plainly a divine allegory; since, next after the word of God [the usual salvo to the Biblical orthodoxies], the image of the world, itself, is the herald of the divine power and wisdom; as the Psalmist also sung, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." But it is idle for man, -"proud man! Drest in a little brief authority; Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, His glassy essence," to look for the image, or the reality, in the back of the mir. ror; for, in this way, he merely makes a fool of himself, and "like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep." Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 2. For nothing can be seen there but that "deceiving and deformed imagery," which the mind of man, in any age, has been, and is, capable of imagining and representing to itself, with or without the help of teacher, prophet, or messiah; book, bible, gospel, sermon, speech, or other mode of communicating the thoughts and visions of men to one. another. Nevertheless, men will persist in looking for light and knowledge from within and behind the mirror, deceived by the miraculous reflection; for, as Bacon says again, “the mind of man (dimmed and clouded as it is by the covering of the body), far from being a smooth, clear, and equal glass (wherein the beams of things reflect according to their true incidence), is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture." But in truth and reality, "man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, does, and understands as much as he has observed of the order, operation, and mind of nature; and neither knows nor is able to do more." And " every thing depends upon our fixing the mind's eye steadily in order to receive their images exactly as they exist, and may God never permit us to give out the dream of our fancy as a model of the world, but rather in his kindness vouchsafe to us the means of writing a revelation and true vision of the traces and stamps of the Creator on his creatures" [creations]. And in the plays, we have this same metaphorical use of the stamp, thus: To pardon him that hath from Nature stolen A man already made, as to remit Their saucy sweetness that do coin Heaven's image 1 Translation of the De Aug., Works (Boston), IX. 98. |