Page:Language of the Eye.djvu/28

12 powers of sight; it is the shape of the greater and lesser channels of our life, as well as of the muscular and nervous powers; the vessels and arteries of man are all spherical. It is in this shape the whole body is prefigured; indeed, in the form of man is all nature prefigured, The light, the air, the fire, the water, are all thus prefigured. Some have thought that the whole body consists of a series of rings or spheres. The sphere is the shape which furnishes the greatest convenience in the least possible space; indeed, it is so obviously a supereminent expression, that generations of man in all time must acknowledge its eternal powers and graces. As we have said, there are no mathematical straight lines in the world, as real lines are constantly in a state of polar action or tension, always converging and diverging, at once central and peripheric, i.e., assuming their natural bias as boundaries of the sphere; in truth, the whole universe is a globe or sphere; it is, like its Creator, a total and independent spirit. For should the Mighty One (in reverence we speak) appear real, He must appear in a sphere; and we never contemplate His mystic being, but enshrined in that space, which is a point of space in a state of expansion. And in those sweet and happy moments when the tired spirit of man pauses and allows the eye of faith to enter the unseen world, his being conceives itself in presence of God, and his angels are shadowed forth by a sphere of bounds immeasurable.

Another axiom, which is most obviously sequent, is, that there is no level surface in the universe (the sail of the ship is first seen); no pure surface or pure lines, all being curved. The surface of a sphere cannot be regarded as a continuum, but as drops, or the fashion of the heavenly bodies, or as when a given quantity of air is displaced so many spheres are readily moved amidst other