imprinted so much of permanent delight in 'immortal song'! - Nay, is it not actual experience, and of a lovely sort, that instantly the mind recurs to the recognition of this Religion of Universal Nature, it seems instinctively to feel the living return of all the liebliches Geschlecht' of the Götter Griechenlands!'-Schiller was false to those inner breathings of true and present Deity which were the soul of his poetry, when he could lament for the entgötterte Natur!' The old cry of the elder deities, the dispossessed genii of mountain, stream, and wood, that sent forth their plaintive wail when the triumphant personality of the lord of creation asserted itself in its first engrossing egoism:-the cry which the followers of the newly-incarnate Christ exulted in as the woe of departing demons, when it mourned Ai, the great Pan is dead!'comes back to our ears with a sense of beauty altogether new, now that we are no longer obliged to pervert its music by transposing it into the mythic representation of fact for which Christian Realism has taken it. Knowing, now, that the great Pan is not dead, and can never die;—and seeing that what that Christian Realism took for fact was fancy, and that what it took for fancy was fact;· -we listen to the far-subdued plaint as pouring itself from the genuine pang of ancient severed faith, torn from that which was truly substance of its substance:—a reverberating moan that has never hushed, sighing along the ages, a night-wind through primæval pines, until its exquisite discord in a minor key is now once more resolving itself into the full harmony of an universal religion!

"And attuned to the spirit of religion such as this, has it not been always that a Wordsworth, an Emerson, and every true poet-nature has loved to stroll back into the world's early pastime, and see, forgetting all its store of grown-up acquisitions, what wisdom to the berries went'; silencing with pleasant fancies' the over-inquisitive self-ism that asks

'What influence me preferred

Elect to dreams thus beautiful?'

Ungratefully-contemned Nature!—what happy return of innocent childlike truth, the lovely opposite of childish conceit,-is it to feel how far superior is her own naturalness to that which we had esteemed super-natural, only because we were slow to believe how much greater Nature could be in herself than that which we had imagined! In this sense, truly farthest from us be the notion of passing out of the range of the supernatural, and sitting down contented with the mere actual and present!-Only, into our heaven, not alone the faithful dog', but this little daisy, budding into spring-life, must bear us company!”"Thoughts in aid of Faith," by Sara S. Hennell.

CHAPTER IV.

SPECULATIONS ON SPIRITUALISM AND OTHER ABNORMAL CONDITIONS OF MIND.

"The perfect observer in any department of science, will have his eyes as it were opened, that they may be struck at once by any occurrence, which, according to received theories ought not to happen, for these are the facts which serve as clues to new discoveries." — Sir J. Herschel.

"He who ventures to treat, a priori, a fact as absurd, wants prudence. He has not reflected on the numerous errors he would have committed in regard to many modern discoveries.”—Arago.

"With regard to the miracle question, I can only say that the word 'impossible' is not to my mind applicable to matters of philosophy. That the possibilities of nature are infinite' is an aphorism with which I am wont to worry my friends. And if John Smith tells me to-morrow that by a word he can make a stone fall upwards, or cause the Record to speak with decency and fairness, or (say) the Bishop of Oxford, I may not think it worth while to go into the question, the value of John Smith's critical faculty being unknown to me, while the general course of experience is terribly against him, but I will not declare what he says to be a priori impossible. But if my friend Professor Tyndall should make either or both of the same assertions, I should feel bound at least to suspend my judgment until such time as the matter could be fully investigated." Professor Huxley.

"In the last number of the Spectator (February 10, 1866), Professor Huxley has paid me the great compliment of stating that were I to tell him to-morrow that I could by a word cause a stone to fall upwards, he would feel bound to suspend his judgment until such time as the matter could be fully investigated. It is not often that I find myself unable to reciprocate the sentiments of my eminent friend. But on the present

occasion I feel bound to say, that were he to confide to me the statement of his ability to reverse by a word the action of gravity, my judgment regarding him would find mournful expression in the line:

'O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown.' *

Professor Tyndall.

The Correlation of Force in Living Structures. WHETHER the egg came before the chicken, or the chicken before the egg; whether organization depends upon life, or life upon organization, is still under dispute. What took place "In the beginning" it is difficult to say, but at the present time there seems to be a mutual dependence of organization upon life and life upon organization. Life— the vital spark, is, as far as we know, in all cases hereditary— for I hold the "spontaneous generation" theory to be at present "not proven." Life is transmitted from parent to offspring, and that offspring is dependent upon organization for the peculiar vital forces it displays; and with the organization perishes the life, at least in that form. As we have seen, however, the vital spark may lie dormant in

It will be seen that I look upon Huxley's as by far the more philosophical position. We see a stone "fall upwards" when projected by a word or volition, or nervous force, from the arm. Now is it certain that mental force, a correlate of physical, can act upon the stone through no other medium but the nerves and muscles of the arm? Huxley says, "let me see it, that's all"; Tyndall says, "I won't look, the man's mad that asks me." Has gravitation then no correlate like the other forces ? We find whole seas ascending from their basins, and descending again with a force sufficient to turn all the machinery in the world. In the following pages I wish it to be distinctly understood that personally I cannot vouch for the truth of what are called the spiritual manifestations; I have seen enough to induce me to believe they may be true, and the testimony of such men as Professor de Morgan, and many others equally honest, if not equally competent, I hold to be sufficient to warrant full investigation, and to "speculate" as I have done on their cause.

FUNCTION DEPENDENT UPON STRUCTURE.

71

the seed for thousands of years until quickened into growth by heat and moisture; whether the same thing can take place in animals-as for instance in the toad said to be found alive in the red sandstone, is very problematical. Force, passing through the organization of the human body, accomplishes a great variety of work, according to the peculiarity of the structure through which it passes; and that which it does unconsciously through the stomach, liver, lungs, heart, circulation, muscles, &c., is quite as wonderful, and attended with quite as much intelligence as that which passes consciously through the brain. The perfection with which. the different functions of the body are performed depends upon the condition of its organ. "The highest degree of organization giving the highest degree of thought." If the structure is impaired, disease takes place, and what is called the vis medicatrix natura, is probably nothing but the strong tendency that all vital structure has to assume its natural form or type.

The usual inlets to the mind for the forces without, are said to be the five senses of Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Feeling; but the whole body is an inlet to the mind, and we have besides a sense of temperature, of pleasure and pain, and a muscular sense.* The bat, and somnambules

*See "Man's Nature and Development," p. 97, et sec., by H. G. Atkinson, F. G. S., and Harriet Martineau. I consider this work the most valuable contribution towards Psychology based on Physiology which we have had since Gall and Spurzheim's works on Cerebral Physiology, or Phrenology. Professor Gregory, in the Preface to his work on Mesmerism says "The reader will find, in the work recently published by Mr. Atkinson and Miss Martineau, many striking facts connected with animal magnetism, which is one of the subjects treated of. Mr. Atkinson's observations on the functions of different parts of the brain as exhibited in the magnetic sleep are of the highest value, from that gentleman's great experience and intimate knowledge of the

and mesmerised people see without eyes; that is, the same force of light is conveyed to the brain through a different medium. Heat and electricity pervade the whole nervous system, and light, heat, and electricity, are but differing conditions of the same force or influence, and this seeing without eyes therefore may be accounted for. Dr. Howe, in his education of Laura Bridgman, showed how possible it was to reach the mind through other than its ordinary inlets. The sense of pleasure and pain must be distinguished from the feeling that attends the propensities and sentiments and other mental faculties and sensations. Mr. Atkinson, very properly, I think, gives them their separate organs in the brain. In accordance with this we find that as each organ can manifest only a limited amount of force according to its peculiar function, so only a certain amount of pain can at one time be endured. I know a lady who lately had eight teeth taken out at a sitting; after the first three she says she felt very little pain; and martyrs at the stake and criminals on the rack fortunately could only feel a limited amount of pain. Pain and Pleasure are transformed force-mental correlates; and Mr. Atkinson in mesmerising found that he could hold pain as it were, in the hollow of his hand; he could transfer it from another body to his own, and from one person to another, and " sleepers" who were so insensible that you might cut off their limbs without their knowledge, would feel instantly any pain inflicted on the mesmeriser.

subject. I should have made use of them but his work did not appear until the whole of the first part of mine was written." I have received several communications from Mr. Atkinson relating to the subjects of this work, while it has been going through the press, which I think are valuable, and which I have given in the Appendix.