man himself; and as the human body, wonderful in its structure, curious in its mechanism and its laws, is nevertheless inferior in dignity and worth to the spirit that dwells within, and is the true lord of this fair castle and domain, so is the science of the body, its mechanism, chemistry, anatomy, laws, inferior to the science of the mind, the divinity within.

Many of the sciences which are justly regarded as among the most noble are themselves the creations of the mind. In some sense all science may be so regarded. The materials furnished by nature are put together and framed into a science by the intelligent mind. In some cases, however, the very materials seem to be the creations of the mind-instruments which it devises to aid it in its progress, and with which it works upon still higher creations, as a mighty army, in its resistless march, builds the roads, bridges the streams, levels the mountains, to make itself a way. Of this sort seems to me the science of number and quantity; when duly appreciated, in all its extent, and range, and precision and power, truly one of the most remarkable products of human ingenuity and skill-for such unquestionably it is-a pure creation of the mind. Observe now this man of number and of quantity; how starting with a few self-evident and simple truths, manufacturing out of his own brain and fancy, such simple instruments to aid him, as a point, a line, and a circle, not one of which is ever to be found in the actual, real world, not one of which has any existence save in his own imagination, he goes on to combine and construct with these until he builds up a tower whose top reaches the skies, and from that lofty and impregnable tower, his castle, his fortress, which nothing can shake, from which nothing can drive him, this man, this presumptuous builder, calmly measures off the courses of the stars, and calls their names, and spans their dimensions, and weighs their bulk, and measures their speed, and announces their coming, yet afar off, and with his magic tube follows them in their distant flight through the wilderness of space. Is anything I ask more strange, more admirable than this? Yes, I reply, there is one thing more wonderful even than this, and that is the mind that devised, constructed, and executed this science, and now works with it as its mighty and magic instrument; and he that would observe the most curious and wonderful thing of all, must leave the figures, and the diagrams, the lines and circles, the tubes, and the tables, with which this man works, and study the man himself, the workman.

So also are the creations of art, beautiful, wonderful, as seen in the canvass which warms, and glows, and moves into life and passion as No. 8.-[VOL. III, No. 1.-9.

you gaze, or in the chiselled marble that with serene, calm feature stands and looks upon you, all motionless, all passionless, yet as if cognizant of your inmost being,-an ideal presence drawing you to itself as by a species of enchantment, till a mysterious sympathy springs up between you and it,—this too is wonderful,—this, and the art that can do this. And yet one thing is more so,—the mind that can contrive and execute this work of art.

So is it also, with human language. Take that grandest and most majestic of them all, the Hebrew; take that richest and most finished of them all, the Greek. You have that which may well receive, as it well deserves your closest study, and your warmest admiration. But after all, is it not chiefly interesting as one of the productions of the human mind, illustrating the laws, and developing the hidden structure of that mind? The richness, the affluence, the elegance, the exactness, the beauty, of what are these the qualities? Where did they dwell? In the Greek language, or in the Greek mind? Which is, of the two, the more wonderful and worthy of study, the statue, obelisk, cathedral, with its solemn aisle, and overhanging dome, or the mind that devised and wrought out these things, that saw them when as yet they were not, saw them in all their perfectness as they were to be?-which of the two, the instrument, or the instrument-maker ?— which of the two, the Greek language, or the Greek mind, that called into being and use such an instrument of speech? And of which is the science most noble and most worthy of regard?

I admire the genius of a Kepler, a Copernicus, a Newton. I sympathize with their enthusiasm as they develop the laws, and study the movements of the heavenly bodies. I look through the telescope, not without a feeling of awe, as it seems to lift me up, and bear me away into the infinite, and bring me near those stately orbs that beyond the ken of human vision dwell in the silence and unbroken stillness of

their own eternity. But there is one thing which fills my whole being with yet a deeper awe and reverence than even those majestic orbs ;that is, the mind that from this, its lowly dwelling on the earth, in all the weakness and the ignorance of its earthly condition, looking out afar into those clear deep spaces, can by patient observation, discover the hidden laws, and spell out the complicated movements of that vast and busy orrery of worlds.

An importance attaches to the science of mind, if we consider, in the second place, its connection with the past, its historic associations. Many of the sciences justly regarded as important, are of comparatively recent date. This is true indeed of most of the natural sciences. Geology, Physical Geography, Zoology, Botany, Physiology, Chemistry, are of no remote origin. It is scarcely half a century since some of them

began to assume a strictly scientific form. Go back a few hundred years, and you find the stateliest and most assuming of them either. wholly lost in uncertainty of origin, or running out into fanciful and absurd speculations. Astronomy, a mathematical and not a physical science, may be regarded as an exception to this rule. Yet what was even Astronomy, before Copernicus, and the telescope, and the sixteenth, or even the seventeeth century? Many important facts had indeed been observed and registered before, but the science in anything like its present exactness, and completeness, can scarcely go back to the middle ages. The science of number, and quantity, being, as I have already said, more purely a creation of the mind, was of much earlier origin, and was already fixed in its general principles, and settled on a firm basis, almost at the outset of ancient civilization. But no inquiries were of earlier origin among men, than those pertaining to subjects purely metaphysical. Go back as far as you will toward the Orient, toward the first dawn of a rude and imperfect civilization, you still find men busying themselves with the great problems that to this day remain unsettled. The earliest speculations of the human mind, its first attempts to get beyond the little sphere of activity that immediately surrounded it, and the narrow domain, of sense, seem to have assumed this direction Chaldean and Egyptian shepherds, watching their flocks by night, observed the starry heavens, and recorded the movements of the changing constellations. But long ere that, had the question arisen, and been intently pondered by many a reflecting and observing mind, whence came those nightly luminaries, and whence this fair earth, and what its origin, and what the soul of it, and whence and what am I, and my race. These questions, and such as these,— what are they, but the very rudiments and ground work of philosophy.

It has been said by an ingenious writer, that the man who first discovered that dry wood could be set on fire, deserves to be regarded as the first philosopher. We would by no means detract from the merits of that truly brilliant discovery. The man who made it, certainly deserves a medal, and a monument. And yet we are by no means sure that the palm of original discovery does not rather belong to that other man, who first discovered that there is such a thing as wood, and that it is distinct and different from himself—in other words, that there is matter, and also mind; each subject to its own proper laws, and manner of being. And this I presume must have been a somewhat early discovery in the history of the race.

Indeed, we can hardly imagine a state of human society and civilization so primitive and rude, as to lie back of all inquiry and thought as to the causes and philosophy of things. Far enough from the

truth may have been those primitive hypotheses and speculations, wide of the mark, not unlikely, those primitive inquiries, and laborious patient investigations; but they were the foundations and first beginnings of a science that probably goes further back into antiquity, and has engaged the attention of a greater number of thoughtful, earnest minds since the creation of the world, than any other that can be named. And from the day when such inquiries first presented themselves to the first reflecting and inquiring mind, from that age to this, what earnest reaching forth and striving to grasp the true, the unknown, the infinite, to learn a little of the hidden causes of things, to lift up a little in some way the impenetrable veil that shuts down about us here, and obtain a glimpse of the fair realms that lie beyond.

The student of astronomy, as he watches the heavenly bodies, is carried back to the past, and filled with peculiar emotion, as he remembers that on these same constellations which he now beholds, other eyes fixed their earnest gaze, in those years when the earth was young; beheld them then, as he beholds them now,-Orion, there, and Pleiades, and Taurus, and the varied host; and so in like manner is the student of philosophy linked with remotest ages, and associated with the greatest and richest historic names and periods, when he meditates upon those themes which have tasked the human mind from the beginning, on which the mighty Stagyrite discoursed, walking to and fro, with his disciples, and the noble-souled Plato, and Plato's great master, and the still earlier Greeks of the Asiatic colonies, whose works are mostly lost in the confusion of the ages, and the wreck of time, but who meditated, and doubted, and believed, and taught, upon the very same problems which engage the attention of the student at the present day. He that would hold converse with the noblest spirits of the past, must frequent the paths and explore the fields. which were their favorite resort.

The importance of mental science is evident further, from its intimate connection with our own interests, and personal destinies—some sciences interest us as abstractions, merely speculative systems of truth; some as realities, and facts, but of such a nature, so remote from humanity, and the common wants of the race, as to make little appeal to the heart and soul of a man. We are interested in mathematical truth, as in a finely cut and beautiful crystal, every part finished and perfect, just as it existed from of old, before man was upon the earth, or there was any intelligence save that of the Creator to contemplate its beauty. What connection have those eternal and unchangable truths with man and his affairs. They would have been equally true had he never existed. We observe the movements of

the heavenly bodies, but feel as we so do that those orbs are far beyond us, having no relation to us, ignorant of us, keeping their stately progress even as they moved ages ago, and as they will ages hence. What have we to do with them, or they with us? We watch them as they hold their course through the deep firmament, as children standing on the shore watch the distant moving sail that glides silently along the horizon-so far, so beautiful, so still. Even thus sail those swift ships of the firmament on the wide sea above us, and only He who built them, and who guides their course, knows their history.

But when we come to the study of ourselves, the laws of our own intelligence and consciousness, the problems of our own being and destiny, our investigations assume a practical importance and interest which pertain to no other departments of truth. It is no longer the distant star in the heavens, shining where God placed it ages ago, no longer the sail dimly visible on the far horizon, but our own conscious being, that is the object of our thought. The question is no longer, whence comes that swift ship, whither goes it, what bears it; but what am I, and whither going, and what freight bear I, myself a swift sailing ship on this ever flowing sea of time,-what is my destination, and what my history? This mysterious soul which animates me, and is the presiding divinity over all my actions, what is it, with all its faculties-reason, imagination, memory, sense- -these varied powers and laws of my being? What is that wonderful change. that passes over me, when, no longer in communion with the external world, I am still conscious of existence, and the busy thoughts are active still-that state which men call sleep? And what is that still more dread and mysterious change that must soon pass upon me— that which men call death? How is it that objects, and events, remote in time and space, come back to the mind with all the freshness and reality of the passing moment? What is that principle of my nature that presumes to place itself in opposition to all my inclinations and passions, and lifting its reproving finger, say to me thou shalt, and thou shalt not; and which, when I disobey this command, pursues my steps like a vindictive angel, tracks me over the wide world, fills my whole soul with misery, my whole future being with remorse ? What mean I by that little word,-duty,-what by that little word,-ought,-that connects itself so often, and so closely with my pursuits, and my happiness? Ought what, and why ought, and to whom ought? Am I free, or am I under the chain of stern inevitable fate? Are all my actions predetermined, and by whom; if not, then where is Diety, and that superintending Providence that