that their effects or embodiments are in the lower or outer world.

Thus, the end for which all this universe is created, is life. That life which is fastened to the outer world, and is dependent upon it, and dies with it, is only instrumental life. All vegetable life is instrumental for all animal life; all animal life is instrumental for human life. All outer, and earthly, and perishable human life is instrumental for inner, eternal, and genuine human life. It is this last which we mean by life, when we say that life is the end for which all that exists is created and preserved.

For this life, truth, in some of its forms, is precisely the same indispensable requisite that water is for external life; and for this life it must be provided as effectually as water is provided for earthly life; and it is provided in the same way, and by the same laws, and means, and methods, with no other difference than that they operate above and on the higher plane of life for that higher life, and on the lower plane of life for that lower life.

Thus the mind has its sea; and in another Essay we have said that this corresponds to the natural memory, into which run all truths and knowledges, there to remain, known or unknown, until they are needed elsewhere; and we will not repeat here the illustrations we there attempt of this correspondence. From this sea, and from all the waters of the mind, and from all things in nature which the mind recog

nizes, there are forever rising up thoughts, reflections, knowledges, ideas of some kind or another. These rise up by being disconnected from the particular things with which they were at first associated. While fastened to them, the mind was fettered. It was impossible that it should know or think otherwise than of those particulars, or of similar individuals, and in a similar way. mind can think what are called abstract thoughts, or form general ideas. From many things which are beautiful it can form the idea of beauty. From things which are right it can form the idea of rectitude. From things which are wrong, it can form the idea of moral evil. From things which are strong, it can form the idea of power. From things which are good, the idea of goodness. And from the kindness which it experiences, or observes, or feels, it forms the idea of love. So of innumerable myriads of others. These general or abstract ideas the mind can deal with; can compose into new and complex forms, can analyze into their elements, can construct into logical series and draw its inferences; can thus think and believe something about God, and duty, and eternity, and religion, and the relations between man and his neighbor, and man and his God. How all these things are done, and what are the faculties or laws, or activities of mind which cause, or permit, or control them, we do not know. Philosophers, so called, differ about these things as much, and perhaps not more, than

But when liberated from them, the

philosophers of another sort do about the laws, qualities, and forces by which water is given forth by everything on earth, and received by and mingled with air.

What we know on the one hand is, that water does so rise and mingle with the air; and what we know on the other hand is, that men, by the mere fact of their human nature, do form and preserve, and do make some use of those general and abstract ideas which were born in their minds from things of the earth and of sensuous experience. It is as certain that no savages have as yet been discovered who have altogether wanted all ideas of this kind, as that no air hitherto known was perfectly free from the moisture which is derived from earth. And then we know of the water in the air, that if it only abides in the air, the earth will become the abode of death; it must fall from it, upon the fields which are prepared to receive it, and make them fertile. So, too, we know that if these thoughts remain only intellectual, if they are only systems, opinions, knowledges, and beliefs, and never descend upon the fields of practical life, and fertilize them, we have no life in our life. We have nothing of that higher life which is more than sensuous, more than earthly, more and better than this world only will suffice for; nothing of that life which, after we have done with this world, will find a new home, new objects, new development, and new happiness.

Therefore it is a first and absolute essential that

there be these fields of actual and practical life. As the waters must be gathered together so that the dry land may appear, and then fall down as showers upon the land, and as it is in that land only that the seeds can be planted, and those roots be nourished, upon which leaf, and stalk, and flower, and fruit depend, so we may be certain that the increase of the water of the mind will be of no value or utility if there be no fields of actual and practical life, upon which they may descend. And upon these they must come down, not in desolating storms, but as those showers which gently fall and sink into the prepared bosom of the earth, and then in silence do their work of blessing upon the seeds which have waited for them, and at their touch wake into life.

If it be asked, why this machinery, why this complicated and mysterious method of accomplishing the simple purpose of instruction, my answer would be, why the analogous machinery, and complicated and mysterious method of accomplishing the simple purpose of irrigation? In the latter case the facts are certain, if the reasons and methods are obscure. In the former case, the facts would be as certain, if we chose to study them patiently and intelligently; and the reason and the methods would not be more ob

scure.

When the soul is studied and cared for as the body is, and its reality acknowledged, its life believed, all its interests watched and protected as those of the body

are now,

the darkness will grow less, and the darkness itself will not be called, as it now is, light.

By means of the law of correspondence God speaks to us in all His works; and the science which teaches and explains this correspondence reads to us and interprets the lessons which He gives. By means of the law of correspondence He speaks to us yet more clearly and more precisely in His written Word; and again it is the science of correspondence which reveals those lessons of His Word.

A word is the body of a thought. In it the thought lives, moves, and acts. His Word must be the expression of His truth, of His wisdom. This must be an infinite, and perfect, and eternal wisdom. The higher angels must read the instruction it gives as much as the humblest mortal. If it were human wisdom, and if he who uttered it were a man, we might suppose that he would say to those highest in capacity, and in their present knowledge, such things as would suit them; and to those who knew less, and whose capacity of learning was less, other things which would suit them; and these things would be entirely independent, having little or no connection with each other. Not so is it with the Divine wisdom. This is one, absolutely one, everywhere. But while it is one in essence, it is many in its meaning. By means of the law of correspondence it is so expressed, that while the highest angels recognize in it a meaning whose