the spirit of the age a ritual which appeals to neither sympathy or passion.

But the age of every 'Heroism,' as well as that of Chivalry, has vanished before the progress of civilization. The triumph of time over the vestiges of antiquity is complete. Stalwort mind has at length chosen the new field of diplomacy in which to engage, and foresworn its allegiance to thought, manly, open, and free-to thought which fears not scrutiny. The better impulses of human nature have been swathed in the bandages of infancy, until, like the feet of the Chinese princess, they have become contemptible from their very diminutiveness. A strong and striking contrast now presents itself in every thing, and in nothing is the dissimilarity more marked than in the different means resorted to for the purpose of cultivating a love of virtue. The beneficent ends then accomplished by the spirit of Chivalry are now subserved by a formal code of morality, of which society at large are by no means the devotees. Temporal emoluments and honors are not linked as of yore with the precepts of religion, and hence it is that so much of hypocrisy and false-hearted compliance ensue. Whether in this light the world has benefited by the change; whether the rules of morality are now observed with the same punctuality as were formerly the behests of honor; whether derelictions from duty are now looked upon by all with the same stern eye of repression, as when the knights' privileges were revoked for swerving from the path of rectitude, we leave others to decide for themselves. Yet still, when looking back upon an era which has passed with so much glory to itself, in which the fleeting visions of love and war seem united in harmony, and where knightly chevisance was ever the expression of virtue, we cannot but lament that the nobler elements of Chivalry have been suffered to decay so sadly in our own social system.

In conclusion, we cannot say that we would wish a return of that period, and the work of centuries undone; but that some of the grace which then invested man-that some of the attributes which then ennobled him, characterized our own age, we do most heartily wish. Yes! in all sincerity and candor must the admission be made, even though it provoke the sneer of the utilitarian, that ever mournful and sad will the truth recur to us, that all those fine old "humanities" are fled, that the foundation of so much poetry and fiction is no more, and that those deep marks of character, Honor, Faith, and Charity, are now mistily obscured, and only linger with us, like spirits around the place of their former abode.

THAT mysterious and most subtle of all influences or principles in nature, life, is yet to be a subject of investigation. Light, electricity, gravitation, magnetism, and galvanic action, have all been reduced to what men call sciences; that is, a few of their principles of action, or a few modifications of their principles of action, have been ascertained and recorded in books which men term scientific treatises; but beyond this little is known of these mysterious and most subtle influences of nature.

Man erects his lightning-rod, and the ethereal agent leaps to its point almost at his command; he constructs his chain of batteries, and instantly perceives the electric circuit, the most obdurate metals yielding to a hitherto unknown principle of resolution, and Nature, bound by a law of adhesiveness that might seem to defy the hand of

Omnipotence itself, quietly submitting to the agency of an invisible spirit, and hurrying back, as it were, to her primeval chaos. And yet how little is known, actually known, of either electricity or galvanism! We are overwhelmed, struck dumb with astonishment, at their simplest manifestations, and yet we may be said to know comparatively nothing of them. So with the law of gravitation, so called that unseen, but all-pervading and mighty influence which enters into the stupendous machinery of the universe, and so mysteriously, but unerringly, directs the motions of each heavenly orb; which pursues the comet in its rapid flight, and, after the lapse perhaps of a thousand years, brings it triumphantly back to its destined point in the heavens.

Nor less astonishing is magnetism-that wonderful agent which slept for so many ages in its own native iron element. What each of these principles are, is a question that must continue to sleep on in the deep of time. They are each and all a mystery too unfathomable for solution.

But what can we conceive, or think, or say, of LIFE-that principle without which the universe of God were a blank, without which existence itself were non-existence? It is manifestly something—something existing and seeking its own peculiar manifestation here in time and place. Yet you cannot investigate it, or subject it to a crucible. You cannot grasp it, or even the thought of it. The more you labor to comprehend it, the more incomprehensible it is to you. And yet it is in and around you, and by far the most material part of you. You can, in fact, find no spot in the creation of God where it is not. Go amid the burning sands of Sahara, where death howls his requiem in every blast, and you shall find almost an infinitude of life there. Each grain of sand fanned by a western breeze shall be peopled with its myriads of insective-little instinctive, semi-conscious creatures, existing far down in the scale of being, beyond the reach-almost infinitely so of microscopic power; or, digging down into the solid strata of the planet, possess yourself of the obdurate flint, you shall find, by a process recently discovered, that it is in fact but a most marvelous condensation of life, an incessant activity in the flinty rock itself.

But this conscious ME, this active, efficient, individual force, which has put on the brawn and thews of a man, invested itself in this perfection of clay, what is it? Ask yourselves, one and all of you this question; and yet who is there, out of the nine hundred millions of men that think and act on this globe of ours, that can answer the great sphinx-riddle? We exclaim, Oh, man! how wonderfully, how fearfully made! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a God! And yet, have we really known the first syllable either of God, or angels, or men? Have we torn aside the veil that hides the deep mystery of being, or penetrated aught beyond the reach of mere feeble human sensation? Have we, even in our attempts at investigating the properties of light and heat-those mysterious agencies of life and being-ever gone beyond the simplest apprehensions of physical sen

sation? We perceive that these principles are motive-are active, efficient forces in Nature, impregnating the Universe with life, and we erect our corpuscular and undulatory theories into certain stupendous systems, which we denominate the systems of Nature! And yet, who may not venture to doubt the reality of either of these theories? Do the splendid hypotheses of Newton and others afford any thing more than a mere mechanical explanation of the phenomena of light? Do the two great rival theories of modern philosophers afford any real insight into the nature and propagation of this mysterious agent? Who can satisfy himself even that light is material? What is it that, thus defying the most essential law of its existence, leaps out on the solar beam, and, after reflecting perhaps a thousand inferior orbs, returns back again to the great primal source of its being? Is it matter, in any sense in which that term is yet significant to us? We appropriate the terms "corpuscular" and "undulatory," and satisfy ourselves with that; but poor asphinxed mortals that we are, how unsatisfactory, except to the dull, sightless eye, that is ever looking beyond its power of vision! Down, far down in the dim, mist-regions of vagary and phantasm," we look up, and out, perhaps, for a brief moment, upon the clear heaven that is above us, and satisfy ourselves of what? Of our own insignificance and dust? No! presumptuous mortals that we are, we must soar proudly, daringly, up into the infinite unknown!

It is not for man, even with his god-created faculties, to know what Nature is. That sublime secret is not to be kenned by finite intelligence. If we can but rightly understand what Nature does, we shall possess ourselves in part of the great true wisdom. Those scales with which the sphinx has sealed up our mental vision, will be, at least, partially removed, and we shall satisfy ourselves to look once more through Nature up to her own Great Architect. This is all we should attempt even in fathoming the deep mystery of our own being.

The questions have long been, What is Gravitation? What is Electricity? What is Light? &c.; and they have been answered in such strange Babel-confusion that the world has been well-nigh confounded by a second disjointure of tongues. Sir Isaac Newton has been little less than deified for his supposed discovery of the law of gravitation, to which he was said to have been led simply by the fall of a pippin. But it had been known from the earliest records of time, that bodies attracted each other. It was not known why. It is not known why now. It will never be known why to the mind of man, however infinitely his faculties may be expanded. He must possess some other and higher god-created faculty, before he can comprehend, in the slightest degree, this same law which Newton is said to have expounded.

Kepler had made known, not his, but God's, three great laws in the government of the system, and Newton's was a very natural deduction therefrom. It was no grand discovery,* flashing out to the astonish

* I know it has been customary to consider Newton the discoverer of the law of gravitation; but the idea of such a law commenced with the ancients. Pythagoras

ment of the age, but simply a reduction of known principles to mathematical certainty; and Sir Isaac Newton always regarded the discovery of the Binomial Theorem, a single algebraical formula, by far his highest achievement, and that, notwithstanding the Law of Gravitation, and his contest with Leibnitz about the Integral Calculus.

All that we know, or can ever expect to know, of these subtler influences or laws of the system, is, that they exist. We may discover a few of their modes of action, that is all. It is not for us, in our vain attempts at knowledge, to enter the locked chambers of Eternal Wisdom.

But the subtilest of all principles yet discoverable in Nature, is this Subtility of Life, which, together with its manifestation in action, will constitute the subject of our present reflections.

"Know thyself" is said to be a maxim that God alone can follow. We would, therefore, in the outset, eschew all self-knowledge. We would rather be esteemed, with Carlyle, the "foolishest articulate speaking soul now extant," than to claim the slightest superiority over our brother in this matter of self-knowledge, so called. We would trouble our readers with no "diseased self-retrospections-no agonizing inquiries." We would only seek an interview, for a brief moment or so, with the Life that is in Nature, as it exists within and around us. We venture no theory respecting its properties, but simply wish to view its manifestations.

We shall not condemn Leibnitz for using the terms "incessant activity," nor La Place for his nebulous theory of worlds. It is enough for us to know, that God has impressed certain laws upon matter, which are as eternal as himself. The little nebulous cloud revealed to us by the powers of the telescope, far off on the confines of creation, informs us that He has impressed His law of gravitation there, and that it is but another mighty system in the progress of formation. It revolves upon its aerial axis, and, concentrating in obedience to this law of gravitation, throws off its exterior masses, or refuse material, to form for itself the essential parts of a planetary system. Ages hence, and that little nebulous cloud, which is, in fact, some hundreds of millions of miles in diameter, though now apparently but a speck in the creation of God, will present to the eye of its Great Architect a scene of life and activity beyond all but infinite comprehension. It may not be till myriads of ages hence, but the law of God is at work there, and it will

states, "that the gravity of a planet is four times that of another which is twice the distance." Anaxagoras and Plutarch considered the rapid motions of the heavenly bodies as preventing them from falling together; but Lucretius attributed this to the infinite size of the universe. Copernicus considered gravity as a providence of the Deity, and Galileo as a governing principle in each planet. Kepler says, "that if the moon and earth were not retained by some equivalent force, the earth would ascend a fifty-fourth part towards the moon, while the moon would move over the remaining fifty-three parts, if they both have the same density." In 1674, Dr. Hooke considered gravity as an essential property of matter; that all heavenly bodies gravitate to their own centres; and that this principle of gravitation extends to other bodies within the sphere of their activity. But Newton's Principia did not appear till 1687.