That which for a long time remains merely an
object of vague intuition, by degrees acquires the certainty of positive
truth; and man, as an immortal poet has said, in our own tongue -- Amid
ceaseless change seeks the unchanging pole.*
[Footnote] *This verse occurs in a poem of Schiller, entitled 'Der
Spaziergang' which first appeared in 1795, in the 'Horen.'
In order to trace to its primitive source the enjoyment derived from the
exercise of thought, it is sufficient to cast a rapid glance on the earliest
dawnings of the philosophy of nature, or of the ancient doctrine of the
'Cosmos.' We find even
p 37
among the most savage nations (as my own travels enable me to attest) a
certain vague, terror-stricken sense of the all-powerful unity of natural
forces, and of the existence of an invisible, spiritual essence manifested
in these forces, whether in unfolding the flower and maturing the fruit of
the nutrient tree, in upheaving the soil of the forest, or in rending the
clouds with the might of the storm. We may here trace the revelation of a
bond of union, linking together the visible world and that higher spiritual
world which escapes the grasp of the senses. The two become unconsciously
blended together, developing in the mind of man, as a simple product of
ideal conception and independently of the aid of observation, the first germ
of a 'Philosophy of Nature.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84