Panthea, the Spirit of Nature

Front matter

PANTHEA, THE SPIRIT OF NATURE. REEVE, BENHAM, AND KEEVE, PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS OE SCIENTIFIC WORKS, KING "WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. PANTHEA, ■j'ii i. SPIRIT OF NATURE. in ROBERT HUNT, AUTHOR OP ' The Poetry or Science,' ' Researches on Light,' etc. etc. LONDON: REEVE, BENHAM, AND REEVE, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. 1849. " I speak, Sh, of those who, though bred up under our unfavourable system of education, have yet held, at times, some intercourse with Nature, and with those great minds whose works have been moulded by the Spirit qf Nature -. who, therefore, when they pass from the seclusion and con straint of early study, bring with them, into the new scene of the world, much of the pure sensibility which is the spring of all that is greatly good in thought and action." Coleridge.

Preface

. In the foUowing Sketch — for it claims no higher character — an attempt has been made to exhibit the progress of a young and ardent mind, — cap tivated by the beautiful in nature, and allured by the wonders of science, — under the influence of the conflicting views which beset our philosophy. The dlusions of youth, — its visions of beauty, — its warm feelings, — and its speculative tendencies, all conduce to render pleasing the mystical dreams of visionary thinkers. While, on the contrary, the utilitarian tendencies of the age are coldly repulsive to the young and imaginative mind. The object, therefore, has been, to describe the contest between the False — seductive by its poetic a

PREFACE.

. VI associations, — and the True, as estimated by the standard of the merely useful. In endeavouring to trace the peculiar phases of thought which are conceived to arise under the pressure of these conditions, license has been taken, in gathering, to a focus, those speculations which are peculiarly Continental, — and those which dis tinguishingly characterize the intellectual advances of our own land. Desiring to awaken a spirit of inquiry, the imagi nation has been taxed to inculcate a few abstract truths in a pleasing form, without, however, sacri ficing any fact to the fictitious interest of the narrative. Anxious to exhibit the dangerous influences of false modes of reasoning, and defec tive habits of observation, — of showing what is objectionable in the modern system of science, and the exalting tendencies of that philosophy which questions the oracle with an earnest de sire to elicit truth for its own sake, it is hoped that the following pages may prove suggestive of the advantages which arise from " The mar riage of Thought with Nature."

R. H. October 30 th, 1849. THE PRELUDE. Calmly the waves sank on the yellow sand, — The clear blue ocean, like a mirror, spread Its sky-reflecting waters round the strand, Theh surface tranquil as the newly dead, On whose calm features heaven-lights often shed The halo-radiance of an angel-smile. — Here, with the banded Muses, oft I fled, To worship Nature in a flower-crowned isle, Wliich neither pride, nor power, nor passion, could defile. It was an island where pure dreams had birth ; — The nest from whence those child-like visions spriug, Which bless the slumber of the good on earth. — Here, with the stream of tide meandering In my frail bark — a fairy-fancied thing, — I floated on, and watched the daylight's close, When the retiring sun did proudly fling Prismatic glories o'er the cloudy snows, And, charmed by mystic sounds, sank to a soft repose.

THE PKELUDE. VIII It was the sighing of the aerial tide, Coursing along a convoluted shell, In frolic placed upon my shallop's side : — A wondrous labyrinth where erst did dwell A creature of the Indian seas ; — a cell fitted for Aphrodite — rayed by light, And pearled in beauty by the ocean's swell ; Yet, though with rainbow rays so richly dight, Its music charmed the ear more than its hues the sight. My soul had glimpses of the spirit-world ; Whispers of angels fell upon my ear. The rainbow flag of glory was unfurled, And through the arch, all radiant, did appear A spirit-band, which, as they floated near, Passed from the myst'ry of an unshaped cloud — A misty brilliancy — into the clear, Wide-spreading vision of a mighty crowd Of the Seraphic host, who shouted " Truth," aloud. Onward they came, thick-crowding ; the pure heaven Grew dazzling bright, as if with summer rain, When by the gusty breezes it is driven And whirled through sunshine o'er a flow'ry plain.

The flashing, sparkling radiance gave me pain, And e'en in sleep I strove to shroud my eyes ; But still the brightness pierced into my brain, And through the lustre, — in the far-off skies, I saw a giant shape, of God-like beauty, rise. THE PRELUDE. IX The echoes of the earth had caught the sound, Which burthened still the voices of the throng ; And o'er each sea, and the wide land around, Rushed forth in shouts, wliich other shouts prolong, The magic word, caught from the Seraph's tongue. The flowers, the forest trees, all things, in sooth, Burst joyous forth into a gush of song, And, hke the wild rejoicings of a youth, The aged earth was shook by the return of Truth. Peerless amid the brightness of that host, The mighty Form came on with gentle grace ; And, hke the waves of ocean, which a coast Divides on either hand, they all gave place, And bowed adoring to that holy face, Beaming with rays of charity and love, Wliich, like the hghts of meteors, seemed to trace Such influence over earth, through heaven above, As rapt devotion views, e'en in the Mystic Dove.

All sounds sank into silence. — Echo died Repeating her own words. The earth was still. Prom the blank rocks wliich range by ocean's side, Up to the snow-peak of the loftiest hill, The brightness of the Presence seemed to fill The atmosphere with breathings of the Blest, And a soft music, hke a murmuring rill, PeU from the Spirit's lips ; her words expressed Exalted thoughts, which were unto my ear addressed. X THE PRELUDE. They were re-mouldings of harmonious thought, Wliich, in an innocent and happy hour, Came to my spirit, — ere my soul was brought Beneath the clouds which over mortals lower, And blight the heart, as by a poison shower. The Spirit's words proclaimed that the low Earth Had strength to win a cincture for her dower ; To rise in beauty, by the force of worth, The brightest star of peace, which yet in heaven has birth.

The Pleiades were high in heaven. My trance Was undisturbed. I saw this multitude Intently watch a noble youth advance Prom earth, by victory crowned. He had subdued The vices born of ignorance ; a brood Black, base, and leprous as the fiends which dwell Hid in the depths of midnight sohtude. " Back to mankind," exclaimed the Shape, " and tell, Man may subdue the earth by Truth's almighty spell." BOOK THE FIRST. Panthea. See, where the spirits of the human mind, Wrapt in sweet sounds, as in bright veils, approach. Chorus or Spirits. We come from the mind Of human kind, Which was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind ; Now 'tis an ocean Of clear emotion, A heaven of serene and mighty motion. From the temples high Of Man's ear and eye, Roofed over Sculpture and Poesy ; From the murmurings Of the unsealed springs, Where Science bedews his Dædal wings. Prometheus Unbound. — Shelley. SPIRIT OF NATURE.

Chapter I. The Ardent Mind

"I dare to think." "To dream—" " Nay, Sir, to think, — unshackled by conventional systems." "The prisoner chained to his dungeon floor may dream of freedom, and revel in a vision of liberty ; but whilst the soul passes the prison bars; and looks with gladness upon the active world, the body to which it is allied rots in its clanking chains." The two who conversed together were in striking contrast. Age weighed heavily upon one of them. B elastic energy of youth was evident in every movement of the other. Thought, anxious soul enlarging thought, had deeply marked the brow of the elder man ; but over the countenance of the younger it played, like a spring sunshine, in a life kindling smile of light and gladness. High intelligence illumined with a pure and steady radiance the noble features of the old man.

Evidences of great intellectual power flashed and scintillated over those of the youth. In the former, long-continued mental toil was strongly indicated ; in the latter, great power, which had never yet been bent to the labour of severe inquiry. Care with her icy touch had graven the face of the elder speaker, and the sorrows of mortality had too evidently added their pressure to the weight of years ; the other stood erect in young manliness ; and a cheerfulness, over wliich no cloud of sadness had ever cast its shadow, played upon his handsome countenance. These two presented a fine picture of life in one of its wide varieties. The aged and the young, looking into the mirrors of their own bosoms, can complete the portraits. It was night, and the hour was strangely beautiful. The deep blue sky was without a cloud ; ancl a waning moon diffused a silvery radiance around, through which some stars still shone brightly ; and indeed the silvery glow of the zo diacal light, involving even the Pleiades, was to be distinguished as a distinct luminous phenomenon.

There was a peculiar charm in the aspect of the night. Are there not influences connected with the manifestations of natural powers which myste riously compel the human soul to contemplation ? Man cannot define the power, or explain its magic ; but he is frequently convinced of its irresistible force. The darkest spirit that ever wandered the earth, stained with the blackest crimes, has felt that voiceless nature could bend his stubborn soul, when the eloquence of human teaching fell idly on his ears. Such was this hour ; — he must indeed have been a lost spirit who could have profaned it with a crime, in such a scene as that in which this aged man and this youth were the only animated things. It was a deep valley shut in by precipitous hills, which were thickly covered with trees of noble growth.

Through it there ran a river, now clear and placid, after having rolled impetuously down a pile of porphyritic rocks closing the end of a dell into which the valley dwindled. The murmurs of the water-fall echoed alond the vale ; but the stream, like a silver snake now glided lazily along as though wearied with its recent struggle. Some ancient inundation had laid bare the surface of the rocks on the hill sides, and huge boulders, which had probably floated upon the ice-fields of the glacial sea, were scattered over the level space. Around these there grew luxuriantly a variety of wild flowers, their sides b PANTHEA, were gay with creeping plants, and their surfaces delicately carpeted with the greenest and most curious mosses. Upon one of these Cyclopean masses sat the old man before whom the young one stood, resting his back against an elegant fir-tree which grew apart from its kindred.

The aged man was Laon Ælphage. He was known among the philosophers of the day as Laon the Mystic. He was regarded by many as a follower of Jacob Behmen, and he excited the anger of others by declaring his firm conviction of the truth of many of the views entertained by the Rossicrucians. In the neighbourhood to which he had retired from active life, he was looked upon as a conjuror or a madman. His companion was Lord Julian Altamont, the only son of that noble house. He was the eldest born of several children, all of whom had died at an early age excepting himself and his young sister. The Ear] of Devonport and Baron of Altamont was proud of his son, because he was nobly formed, presented a manly front beyond his years, and manifested mental powers of the most extraordi nary character. It was the hope of the Earl and Countess to see their son take a high standing in the political world, and they regretted much that the mystical Ælphage had the power of charming the boy beyond any of the instructors by whom they had surrounded him.

At length the young Lord was imperatively commanded not to visit this dangerous neighbour, whom the Earl would have removed from the precincts of Altamont, but that Laon Ælphage was strong in independence. Julian often stole away from the Hall to enjoy the (to him) divine conversation of this extraordinary old man ; — and this was one of the forbidden meetings. Laon sat smiling at Julian, as, after a brief silence, the young nobleman somewhat eagerly replied,— " Deprive me not of the satisfaction I have felt in my efforts to look at nature with my own eyes, and to reject those media through which the schoolmen teach us to view creation." " Associated with the world, Julian," said Laon, " you cannot free yourself from the chain of its errors. A web of thoughts and feelings, peculiar to the age, imperceptibly involves your mind, and even when you free yourself, on one hand, from the besetting sophistries of society, and get a glimpse of truth, your progress is restrained on the other by the shackles of many hereditary superstitions.

The characteristics of a race are the habits of its individual members. How can one man escape from those external agencies which influence all around him, or expect to be free from those mysterious impulses which with the utmost subtlety penetrate and move the mass. You are the child of a period in which the triumphs of mind-— the proud con quests of thought — are our boasted achievements. PANTHEA, Man has more than realized the dreams of Romance. By the power of heat, employed in changing the form of matter, he drives his chariot with strange velocity. That power which, a wonder and a terror, bursting from the thunder-cloud strikes men with fear, he chains by the force of reason, and compels to be the messenger of his whispers — the herald of his thought — with a spirit's swiftness — " "And," exclaimed Julian with enthusiasm, "soon shall we chain the lightning to our cars, and, as cending above the earth like new Phaetons — " " Set the world on fire !

" interrupted Laon. " Maddened by his success, man hurries on, striving to wrest some new secret from nature — forgetting that long and soul-toiling devotion are required before the revelations of the Megacosm are made. Julian, you are a type of the age. The giant ele ment of thought, wliich grows strong with toil, is enervated by indulgence. The eagle eye of the soul, wliich should gaze steadily on the fixed centre of truth, is weakened by looking on the ground, and the flickering of puny stars now dazzles it. Unable to comprehend, to reach the reality, man contents himself with the semblance. Without the will to raise itself from the surface, and nobly wing its flight through the purer air, the mind hurriedly flutters over the low earth, and is satisfied with the superficial search of an irregular flight.

A thousand facts are recorded, aU expressing but one law, and man is confused amid the multitude of isolated instances, — which appear distinct phenomena only, because the truth which lies hidden under a film is missed in the hurry of the age. As man, knowing good and evd, stood bewddered at the gate of Eden, surveying the second chaos which his rashness had produced, he now stands on the frontier of the land he woidd conquer, proud but nearly powerless." " I cannot fancy the intellectual powers of our age are deteriorated," said Julian. " In every de partment of science we have advanced our know ledge." Never before were the arts of industry, or the requirements of luxury, so aided by the applications of inductive research. Think — " " I see your thought," interrupted Laon. " I admit that man has been industrious in creating luxuries, and in increasing the number of his neces sities.

A thousand minds are at work, eager to discover some means of applying known principles to useful ends, and they will have theh reward. Possibly wealth may be theirs, or they may become the heroes of theh day ; — but short is that day, and perishable that wealth. The riches of the priest hood, who watch at the shrines of truth, and win theh immortality by theh devotion to that lhgh calling, are undying. If the man who conquers distance by his mechanical ingenuity wins national honour, how world-embracing should be the fame of him, who, by loosening another seal from the PANTHEA, scroll of creation, sths the whole earth, elevates mankind in the scale of intelligence, and places the human race some degrees nearer that Divinity to which, in spite of man's earthiness, he is, by the power of the sphit, for ever aspiring."

Laon rose from his seat while speaking, and, stretching forth his arm towards heaven, stood like a prophet ani mated by the sphit of inspiration. Julian eagerly replied, " The European mind is earnestly struggling to obtain some object which is seen faintly trembling in the distance — a shadow cloud — undefined and changing, but which each nation, shaping to its own ideal image of perfection, regards as the idol to which it must bow." " The ideal is too often more fascinating than the real to the eyes of man," exclaimed Laon. "What signifies it," asked Julian, "provided the ideal leads to happiness? " " Is the mountebank superior to the minister? " demanded Laon. " Is the brazen image, with its feet of clay, greater than the breathing being? " "You are not just, good Laon," said Julian calmly.

" The unknown must be to man at the best an Ideality. Every human mind images for itself the heaven it desires, and as we have changes of the seasons in the physical world, so can we perceive changes of intellectual power in the moral world, and with these alternations — Heaven and Earth— the abstract and the practical — become in turn the objects of his studies. This is the age of practical application — and is the man, who by em ploying known principles ingeniously produces a combination which shall benefit his race, less worthy of honour than he who wastes a life in the discovery of a new truth, wliich, until it is bent and shaped by some more ordinary mind into a form which can be appreciated, is useless to mankind?" " Yes ! " shouted Laon, and the echoes of the hills answered " Yes ! " Then, turning with a soft smde towards Julian, he said, " A truth once boni into the world is everlasting — a living, soul-exciting influence.

It works its quiet way unnoticed by the world ; but it lifts mankind one step nearer immor tality. Every practical application has its value ; but each one is another rivet put in the chain which fastens the soul to earth. " "AU men aim to be immortal " saicl Julian. " And are so," answered Laon ; " but the im mortality of the ignorant and vicious is not that of the hiteUectual and the good. Angels only differ from men in the higher development of the mind ; and devds, in their mysterious antagonism to truth and goodness, are great examples of the per version of intelligence. Man, in his state of probation, has the earth and her mysteries for his inheritance, and on him is bestowed a mind with almost unlimited capabilities, with which to work out the problem of this eternal Sphinx. The PANTHEA, laboms of the pure mind are ever upward, and the reward of truth-searching is the enjoyment of that angelic state in which all things become visible to us without a cloud.

The very toils of a degraded mind have a downward tendency, and the end of its earthly labour is but the beginning of an eternity of blank and dark endurance." They walked by the side of the river up the valley, and such was stdl the tenor of theh con versation ; but at almost every step it became evi dent that Julian was unequal to that strange old man, who was slowly involving him with a web of insi dious reasonings, by wliich he was led to receive, with reachness and love, his phdosophical mysticisms. Commencing with Man and his influences, Laon had proceeded with much caution to the involved questions connected with the physical powers of nature, and theh operations upon the more highly developed organic forms. The laws of the known physical forces were lucidly explained ; and then, advancing from the things known to a consideration of the things not known, Laon endeavoured to show his pupd how ignorant man was of the causes pro ducing the most ordinary natural phenomena.

" The sun, " said Laon, " shines upon the world. Under the influence of powers which flow from that bright source how various are the residts produced around us ! The agents which excite the living organism of the fruit-bearing tree — which render up to man a healthful luxury — produce from the same elements the deadly poison. The fragrant rose and the stinging nettle grow side by side ; the hly and the nightshade are found in the same locality." Laon stooped, and, plucking a nettle which grew luxuriantly from a low hedge by which they were passing, continued, " The pain inflicted by the wound of one of these small hairs, which cover the serrated leaves of this little TJrtica, is trifling compared with that produced by the crenidate Tfrtica of the East Indies, the touch of which produces an injury as dreadful as any in flicted by our most venomous vipers, and the touch of the dread Devfl's-leaf nettle of Timor, is death, or a prolonged suffering, which is far worse.

Yet the chemist can detect no difference in the juices of these plants; the botanist recognises in them the same external characteristics ; and the natural phdosopher discovers no physical distinction in the phenomena of theh growth. The same solar powers, varying but slightly in intensity, are poured upon them all ; and yet how different the result. The spurge of our own wastes — the acrid juice of which will indeed stupefy the fish of the river, and nothing more — becomes, as we advance towards the tropics, so deadly in its character, that the Indian selects the Euphorbia as the most potent poison for his arrows. This woidd appear to be due to light ; aud many of the tropical Euphorbia imbibe that agency PANTHEA, with such avidity, that if we wound theh stems at night, the milky juice flowing from them phos phoresces with far greater brilliancy than yonder glow-worm, whose silvery star is stdl to science as great a mystery as those transmutations wliich we discover in every page of this mighty book of Nature."

Thus Laon went on to show that there must be powers beyond those with which science has made us familiar, by wliich the known forces were con trolled, until he at last referred them to manifesta tions under modified conditions of the Infinite In telligence, which he regarded as pure mind — the central fire — the ever-burning lamp of the Illuminati. " I cannot follow you," sighed Julian. " I have looked at Nature, and I love her in aU her forms of sublimity and beauty ; but I feel that a great blank exists, — that this poor brain has not the power to grasp the whole. It is for other minds to deal with large generalities. I can only venture on the petty detads." " Julian, you must learn to think instead of to dream. Look at Nature with your own eyes, and not with those of other men. Thy mind wdl gain strength by walking alone ; thine eye will be brightened, and thou wilt advance to the fine perception of the mind wliich moves the elements, and see through the Isis-veil which covers creation."

" Will you teach me to do it?" asked he, with a humility of tone which betrayed some fear. "If thou canst obey my precepts," rephed Laon. " Name them — I'll be a widing slave to your injunctions, if they are not dangerous." Laon smiled, and taking Julian fondly by the hand, slowly said, " The priest, before he could enter the holy place, submitted to purification. To look upon the truth the sphit must be true ; to see the spiritual essence, which is guided by the laws of the Eternal— the moving power of creation, — you must become sphitual. In the body you can so far subdue the sensual, that this fair frame of clay becomes but the case for a pure mind ; but you must grow to the world a stranger, and the world is at present unto you too lovely." " No, good Laon ; no," sighed Julian. " Can you relinquish the palatial home of your fathers — the splendour and the luxury with which wealth surrounds you — the tempting banquet and the teeming wine-cup ?

Can you leave these for the bare rock — the fruit of the wdd tree — and the waters of the nearest spring? " " Aye ! " said Julian, " the garrish splendour of wealth is valueless to me. I feel, indeed, like the monarch crushed by the weight of his golden chains. The mind alone is the true standard of greatness — and my knowledge, not my gold, shall be my staff of power — " " Lord Altamont, you are a lover ! " Julian looked at Laon with a smde : "My mother's PANTHEA, goodness and my sister's innocence appear to repre sent so sweetly the great characteristics of woman, that I love all womankind." "Woman," said Laon, in an impressive tone, " taught man evil. Created more spiritual than man, she became — having yielded to the tempter — the more essentially temporal. By the great con trast between the Ouranos of Paradise and the earth beyond its precincts — between the cloudless brilliancy of the one, and the tempest-riven dark ness of the other — the first pah learnt the cost of disobedience, and in suffering discovered the dis tinctions between good and evil.

The mystery of human passion, working in pure sensualism, induced in woman's soul a longing for those spiritualities she had lost — and through the pure and unselfish love of offspring, who in theh innocence, as they drew theh life from hers, represented the lost bliss — was created an undying longing for a purer state — a constant aspiration for the celestial enjoyment of love and peace, of which infancy is the truest type on earth. The condition of woman determines the position of the race — and the character of an indi vidual, or the character of an enthe people, is deter mined by that sex whose very weakness is a most potent strength. Every woman holds the destiny of at least one human soul in charge beyond her own, and the purity or the grossness of the love which she inspires determines towards vice or virtue with hresistible force.

The soul of man, to become tridy great, must partake of woman's softness, and bend from the pitch of pride wliich the world dignifies by the name of manliness. The Satan of John Mdton's divine song dlustrates the greatness of human pride; but, as even the Devd becomes a Poet in the presence of Eve, so does woman subdue the asperities of her partner, and, if holy herself, she makes him holier stdl. The Countess of Devonport is a woman possessing many of those great virtues and soul-healing charities, which too many of her rank know not. Fear, how ever, like an incubus, presses upon her mind, and she dares not aUow her intellect free play, lest she o'ersteps the prescribed rules of worldly authority. But yom holy mother has done wisely in seeking for you a holy maiden to preserve you from the quicksands and pit-falls of passion.

But, Julian, if you would master the mystery of nature, you must learn to love Eudora Spencer as an Angel of Light, and not as a woman of the dark Earth." "Eudora," said Julian, in a subdued yet im passioned tone, " is pure as light. She has been my guardian angel, and preserved me within the influence of her beautiful sphit in a state of honourable virtue. Her mind is full of good and great thoughts. She taught me to know the stars — to mark the phenomena of light which even now are so sublime ; and but for Eudora Spencer never PANTHEA, should I have sought for that knowledge which has led me, even against my father's commands, to your cottage." " If the Poet Julian plays truant for a season, and returns the Phdosopher Altamont, the intellectual Eudora will forgive him. Then you would become her teacher, — then you could school her to read the wonderful language which is written on those stars of Heaven, and to hear the voices wliich are for ever, like music, breaking from the flowers of the earth, proclaiming the wonders of creative intelligence.

They had now reached the entrance to a small but most picturesque cottage, situated in a secluded part of the dell, close to the cascade which rushed and foamed in the moonlight, beating the dark shrubs and long-trailing plants on either side, with a sort of wdd delight. The cottage was overgrown with creeping plants, which were festooned across the windows and the door with that marvellous taste which disguises its art whde it actuaUy adorns nature. A voice, as soft and musical as ever melted on the whispering breeze into sdence, was heard within, — Laon Ælphage noiselessly pushed open the door, and entering, motioned for Julian to foUow him. The bright moonbeams streamed through the cottage windows, and fell upon the figure of a female who was seated on a low stool, bending with an expression of intense delight over a water-ldy, glistening with dew or spray, whic^she held in her hand.