Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/773

1858.] aiming to grasp it, conceived its first myth, and comprehended something so far below what humanity itself now is or knows, that we use it, along with the more recent productions of Mrs. Goose, to amuse children. This persistent trait in human nature is truly noble, however fruitless. But it is not altogether fruitless. Though the intellectual world has really come no nearer the object of its search, it has advanced far beyond its starting-point, and made valuable progress, which a lower motive could never have prompted. The wisest of mean men, as he was the meanest of wise ones, did very well to check the metaphysical modes and tendencies of human study, and advise the previous comprehension of facts within reach. This worldly wisdom has already made us all wonderfully rich in the chariots and horses of thought. The consequence is, we now rush forth into the infinite in various directions, and, from inconceivable distances of time and space, bring home marvels that are truly sublime.

Mr. Ewbank's "Suggestions" are of this sort, though the turn-out with which he has been exploring the boundless is not, perhaps, quite up to the latest improvements in the Baconian carriage-factory, There can be no doubt of the boldness with which his really modest and unpretending little book grapples with the largest of all subjects, whatever we may think of its success. Postulating, for the purpose of his cosmogony, two, and only two, absolute entities,—matter and spirit,—Mr. Ewbank makes force a property or attribute of the former, which the latter can only direct or make use of, not originate. He does not admit that spirit can overcome the inertia of matter. Whatever inertia may be, it is superable or destructible only by the force or motion of matter itself,—matter being incapable of rest. "Instead of matter being innately inert," says Mr. Ewbank, "as many think, motion is its natural condition." How the spiritual direction—or shall we call it bossing?—of motion or force (which only, according to Mr. Ewbank, produces results) applies itself,—what is its point d'appui, its mode of modifying, its why of causing,—he does not attempt to explain to us. He recognizes the universal gravitating or contractile force, from which, as successive sequences, proceed heat and expansion; but he does not suggest that spirit has any more to do with the first than with any succeeding term in the series. It exerts no force, moves nothing; yet spirit produces all the results. "No regular or useful form," says our author, "can be produced by unbridled force. Intelligence must be present." So it is the business of the spirit to bridle force,—or matter's motion,—mount the restless steed, and ride to a purpose! Shall we ever see the bits of that bridle?

On the subject of material form, we find the following passage, which, while, perhaps, the most original in the book, is to us the least instructive:—

Does this mean that the totality of matter is finite?—that it can be viewed, spiritually, from the outside,—even from such a distance as to appear infinitely small? If so, can there be infinite power, either material or spiritual? If the universe is spherical because its molecules are, can the molecules compose any other than the spherical form? Do we gain much by