hensive of truth; and being also one of the readiest ways in which such satire and wit as may be possessed by any inferior rank of mind can be perpetually expressed, it becomes on all grounds desirable that what is suggested in times of play should be rightly sayable without toil; and what occurs to men of inferior power or knowledge, sayable without any high degree of skill. Hence it is an infinite good to mankind when there is full acceptance of the grotesque, slightly sketched or expressed; and, if field for such expression be frankly granted, an enormous mass of intellectual power is turned to everlasting use, which, in this present century of ours, evaporates in street-gibing or vain revelling; all the good wit and satire expiring in daily talk (like foam on wine), which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had a permitted and useful expression in the arts of sculpture and illumination, like foam in chalcedony." It is probably the first time that "street-gibing and vain revelling" have been regarded as such desirable accomplishments, that it has been supposed that such intellectual power could "be turned to everlasting use,”or that such degraded and degrading manifestations of the Fancy have been recognized as specimens of the true ideal in Art. However ingeniously this unholy connection between the Grotesque and the Comic may have been concealed by Mr. Ruskin, the language here quoted cannot be mistaken, and establishes, in the most conclusive manner, the fact for which we have contended, that the Comic is necessarily realized in all the forms of Art by its degradation.

From the statements which have been made for the purpose of illustrating and demonstrating the Laws of Succession, it must have become apparent, that, in the Church, in the State, in Philosophy, and in Art, changes have taken place which are in exact conformity with the universal laws of growth and development here stated; and that these changes are not confined to any particular department of natural life, but have accompanied the growth and development of all its forms from the creation of the world; because we have shown that these laws are illustrated by the primitive productions of this earth before the creation of man. The external condition of the soul that we describe as having been realized by its descent from internal to external, and from supernatural to natural, principles, as the governing powers of the thought and of the life, and which is a descent from the region of internal truth into that of external good, although presenting a fair exterior, and appearing in useful and beautiful aspects, owing

to the growth of the individual from below upwards, by which he becomes more simple, truthful, and devoted to the realization of external uses for philanthropic ends, -is the lowest point of degradation that it experiences in the whole course of its development. We say that this is the lowest point, for the reason that it is here confined to the region of natural appearances,—which are the most deceptive of all things, because they are the opposite of what they seem,-and that it here repudiates all those supernatural ideas which communicate vitality to the thought and to the life; a condition that is symbolized in the Scriptures by the "great famine in the land," and a degradation that is there symbolized by the keeping and feeding of swine by "the Prodigal Son," as we shall show in our explanation of this parable. The Biblewhich is an inspired book, "written within and on the back side, sealed with seven seals," which none but Christ, as revealed in the consciousness at his second coming, can unloose-is not only brought down to the test of natural understanding and experience, and tried by the standard of natural good, but becomes degraded and neglected by being perverted to the basest uses; so that the writing upon the back side becomes obliterated by natural falsification, and a total blindness is produced to all that is representative of vital supernatural ideas.

It is true that the internal-natural condition of the soul, that has been alluded to in these statements, and which will now be separately and particularly analyzed and illustrated, is the most destructive natural condition that is ever realized by it. Although, in this condition, the individual obtains a consciousness through the highest regions of the mind and of the will, and demands an internal and real manifestation of himself that produces a reality, a simplicity, and a truthfulness in his life, that is far beyond that which is realized in a merely external condition,— he at the same time becomes consciously conceptive of the destructive laws of the mind, and applies them as the laws of his belief and life, and acts with the more external classes in carrying on a warfare against all vital ideas and institutions; and although he has, from being simply natural, become supernaturally conscious, and is consequently governed by supernatural instead of natural laws, this makes his condition still more destructive. He becomes more destructive, because the supernatural laws of which he becomes conscious, and to which he devotes himself with all the zeal of a newly-awakened religious enthusiasm, are the most destructive of all the principles of the human constitution: and nothing can

exceed the violence with which he commences his attack upon all established ideas and institutions, because the religious sentiment is a ruling principle, and the most active of all the powers of the mind; and a religious development is always more violent at its commencement than at any other time, as we may learn from history.

Great natural evil must of course result as the consequence of this repudiation of all that represents a vital spiritual condition, and of this assertion of destructive sentimental laws and natural principles; because all legitimate natural production is realized through the influence of these representatives. When this sustaining influence is withdrawn, truth degenerates into falsehood, and good into evil; and the more sympathetic and externally philanthropic the individual is, the more selfish, unjust, and cruel he becomes. An experience of this kind now threatens a convulsion of society in the United States, which will sunder the ties that bind the states together, overturn the institutions of the land, and perhaps deluge the country with blood. Neither are these evils confined to the condition and manifestations of the human constitution, but extend to all the substances and phenomena of natural existence. The disorders produced in Man are accompanied by corresponding disorders in the whole system of Nature; these being produced by a derangement of the principles which enter into the constitution of vegetable and animal life, by a change in the relative strength of the opposite elements combined in them. We already begin to experience the influence of this change, and may see that disorders in the Church, in the State, and in the manifestations of the Mind, through the predominance of the destructive over the vital principles of the human constitution, and of the natural over the supernatural element, are accompanied by corresponding disorders in the physical world; and these will continue to increase until the vital religious element again becomes the ruling power, and man, in consequence, returns to his allegiance to the vital supernatural ideas which have been externally incarnated through the Church. But the system of Naturalism which rises from the ruins of the Church must pass through a full development, and man must eat of the bitter fruits which grow upon these trees of death that have been planted by him. He needs the lesson which this worship of Falsehood will, through much suffering, impart to him, in order that his perma

VOL. I.

* This was written during the political agitation in 1850.

47

nent progress may be secured, and he may finally attain to the realization of spiritual knowledge and a spiritual life in God. Before these can be secured, the following predictions of the Prophet must be fulfilled: "For, behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, the mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbor: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable." "For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory."

"Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips; in the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief, and of desperate sorrow. Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters; but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. And, behold, at eveningtide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us."

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY

IN

TRANSCENDENTALISM.

We are now to describe the experiences that belong to an internal sphere of the natural consciousness; which must, for reasons already given, be realized to some extent in this atmosphere, although calculated for an ethereal one. To these experiences we give the name of Transcendentalism; because in this sphere the individual becomes internally self-conscious, and conceptive of Laws and Relationships from a supernatural point of view. Now, as these are, in the natural, dualistic, and antagonized as vital and destructive, to represent the opposition between Infinite and Finite Spheres; and as those which are vital have, in an external sphere of consciousness, been unconsciously represented in the vital forms of Society, while those which are destructive are now to be consciously conceived and applied as laws of the individual belief and life, -a universal change of condition, of position, and of manifestation, that is destructive to all the external uses which are appropriated to an external atmosphere and sphere of consciousness, must follow this introduction of the soul into an internal sphere of consciousness. The first and most external fact that presents itself to our notice, therefore, is, that as the soul advances in the realization of this higher consciousness, and becomes manifested from an internal instead of an external point of view, this advance is accompanied by a corresponding decline in those mediums through which it had been manifested in an external sphere of consciousness; and, consequently, the individual experiences the loss of external manifesting power, - finds himself without any congenial occupation, without the power of forming for himself any consistent plan of life, or of directing himself externally in any calculated or consistent manner, and suffering from the absence of those numerous affinities which