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36 unworthy and vain occupations. His whole being is exalted. He knows God has placed him amidst things lovely and harmonious. In these beatific exercises he is often enabled to realize the relation of the beautiful in our own organization; and far from such being merely notional, he feels (with evidence suitable to the subject) that the beautiful is the representative of two of the leading economies of our nature,—viz., the material system and the intellectual capacity. It is then he declares that nature is the rule and manifestation of mathematics, her part being the apparent and material, whilst spirit dominates over the ideal only, and that there is nothing new in mathematics, in nature, or in man. Man is the summit and crown of all nature's developments, and in him will be found a true record of all past time, as the blooming apple contains all the earlier developments. In truth, man is a microcosm, or all the world in miniature. In man are inherent a spirit and nature material, which are but transcripts of each other, their laws being consonant. Perhaps, we may illustrate this somewhat mystic proposition by reminding the reader, that the crystals of ice are nothing else but water bounded by definite lines; showing (in analogy) the relation between real and ideal, spiritual and material,—both are essential to each other and yet different,—the diversity being in form only.

An old English poet, the Rev. Thomas Denton, says:—

And in another poem, it is said:—

Tho' wondering ignorance sees every form decay,

The breathless bird, bare trunk, and shrivelled flower,

New forms successive catch the vital ray,

Sing their wild notes, or smile the allotted hour;