Page:Aesthetic Papers.djvu/137

Rh example's sake, that a savage is introduced for the first time into one of our convenient mansions, and that he knows the use neither of table nor chair, knife nor fork, bed nor carriage, but that his naked body and unarmed hand have been accustomed to direct fellowship, or fight, with nature. Can he account for the connection of the civilized man with his house? By no means. Unhoused body that he is, we see in him a full type of those who dwell on the purity and freedom of disembodied spirits, and cannot conceive the bond between spirit and nature, because they know nothing of the uses of nature to spirit. At first, then, the savage cannot divine why his civilized brother limits himself to a house, because he is uninformed of the good of a house. As he learns the uses of the furniture, and, still more, the mode of using it, the points of connection come forth one by one; and when all the uses are understood, then, for the first time, he has a plenary understanding both of the reason and mode of the permanent act of inhabitation.

Just so it is with the body and the soul. The physiological savage (I beg his pardon), who has been unaccustomed to the means of thought, and approaches all subjects directly with his undoctrinated, undisciplined senses, knows not of the body as a rational abode, but as a raw substance in the midst of nature; and how, then, should he see its connection with a soul? For the uses of things are the reasons why they are used. And hence the perception of the connection of nature with spirit is the exact measure of the perception of the uses of nature. To see the one is to see the other; as to miss the one is to miss the other also.

The soul corresponds directly to the body; it corresponds remotely, or through the body, which is the perfection of physical art, to the house in which the man lives. Or, to put the matter proportionally, the soul is to the body as the body is to the house. In a secondary sense, therefore, the house, including all the implements of social life, may be said to correspond to the body. For the body has to live in the material universe; but this it cannot do nakedly. Its skin is not a sufficient shelter, or a sufficient space, for life on the planet; its hands are not strong enough, or long enough, to move all and do