statics of equilibrium, in exact accordance with mathematical laws. The phenomena of electricity, magnetism, light, heat, sound, chemistry, and indeed all physics, art, design, and beauty, admit of numerical expression and a mathematical nomenclature, in accordance with the laws and formulas of mathematical science; for mathematics is nothing else but a science of the laws of thought, divine or human, so far as these laws have ever fallen within the special domain of any mathematician. Nothing is more moral than science; and all science is mathematical. All possible creation must be, and is, mathematical: even miracles are mathematical. That all bodies should be gravitated, weighed, or impelled, toward each other, directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance, is evidently necessary to the stability of the universe, in order that there may be a Cosmos, instead of a Chaos, or rather a total oblivion and nonentity of all things, if that were conceivably possible; for, as in the play,

"The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,

Observe degree, priority, and place,

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order";

[Tro. and Cr., Act I. Sc. 3.]

as Bacon says of true justice in the law, that it is " suum cuique tribuere, the law guiding all things with line of measure, and proportion":

"Mar. Suum cuique is our Roman justice: This prince in justice seizeth but his own."

Tit. And., Act 1. Sc. 2.

Apply any other law, and the planets would

"In evil mixture, to disorder wander." - Tro. and Cr., Act I. Sc. 3. Chaos is a negative term, expressive of the absence of that order which is necessary to produce a cosmos; that is, a partial absence of form and order, not a total negation of all form and substance, in the whole, or in any particular thing; for that would be oblivion or annihilation of that

whole, or of that particular. The popular idea of matter as a sort of dead substratum, possessing of itself certain inherent and essential qualities, properties, and laws of its own, and, as such, being self-subsistent from eternity, as a something distinct from the thinking essence of God, though co-eternal with Him, or as subsisting without God, and thereby moulding itself into, a universe, as if it were unnecessary to have any other Creator at all, is a mere illusion of unscientific knowledge and uncritical thinking. Take a solid block of ice, for instance, and (what is equally true in general of a block of basalt, granite, porphyry, or any other solid in nature, though every solid may not admit of all the stages of form), apply heat, and it becomes. liquid water, without any change in the quantity of matter; wherein we see that solidity is not an essential quality of matter, but an accidental quality, that is, merely a certain temporary state of equilibrium of stationary balance in the atoms of the mass, at a given temperature. Raising the temperature, that equilibrium is overcome, by the applied force of heat, and the solid takes on the liquid form. Apply a greater degree of heat, and the liquid water becomes an invisible gaseous vapor: wherein we see again that liquidity is not an essential, but an accidental, quality of matter, being only another state of temporary equilib rium of stationary balance in the atoms of the mass, though having a less degree of fixity and permanence of form than the solid ice, and an equilibrium, as a whole, which is disturbed on application of the slightest degree of external force. Apply a higher degree of heat to this invisible vapor, and it is resolved into two distinct gases, without any change again in the quantity of matter. There is a great variety of these gases, or gaseous forms of substance, natural or artificial, each having its own peculiar properties and qualities as such, which are doubtless neither less accidental, nor more essential than solidity, liquidity, gaseousness; but are merely so many other forms of tempo

rary equilibrium of stationary balance in the given quantity of matter, in the whole and in the parts; until, at last, we arrive at the stage in the forms of substance, in which it presents itself to our senses and to all our instruments of observation no otherwise than as invisible force, or power in activity, under laws which are reducible to a mathematical science of the dynamics of force, laws of motion, and statics of equilibrium; at which point all our common notions of dead substratum have absolutely vanished, and science is compelled to drop the expression "indestructibility of matter," and to substitute in its place that of "the conservation of force;" mathematics, again, in reference to all external nature, being, at bottom, a science of the laws and power of Thought, and a metaphysics of creation, remembrance, and oblivion, in the Divine Mind. And so, according to science, as Plato said,1 matter in itself is without Figure, without Quality, and without Species; it is neither a body nor without body, but is the total substance, wherein is the possibility of substances or bodies; and solids, liquids, gases, particular minerals, plants, and animals (in respect of their bodies), are but temporary and transient forms of "stored force," more or less fixed and permanent. Let new conditions happen, and other forces, or new chemical reactions, overcome that fixity, or let the vital or sustaining power be withdrawn, and this stored force is withdrawn, or is set free, and passes into other forms of substance, reaching therein again, perhaps, a temporary equilibrium of stationary balance; but the mineral, plant, or animal, that was, thereby vanishes into oblivion, and ceases to be as such. So force ascends, or rather descends, through all the stages of form and equilibrium, from thinking power to atom, nebula, solar system, globe, stratum, mineral, spore, cell; and from spore to tree and fruit, and from germ-cell to full-grown animal; and thence back again from animal to plant, to mineral, to nebula, to atom,

1 Works of Plato (Bohn), VI. 260.

to thinking power, in the eternal cycle of creation; for, as

in the play :

"Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion."

Tro. and Cr., Act III. Sc. 2.

This hypothetical chaos of matter without form and order, presenting nothing but a certain amount of dead substratum and mathematical physics, is that same fantastical superstition which Bacon attributed to the ancients, and that same "stupid thoughtless somewhat" and "unthinking substratum," which Berkeley, that "altogether fine and rare man," as Herder called him, than whom a greater philosopher has not lived in England, perhaps, since Bacon down to our time, endeavored to exorcise as a visionary phantasm (and it ought to have been effectually and forever) out of all philosophy. Like Bacon himself, Berkeley was not so much a visionary idealist as a Platonic realist. This same fantastic superstition still beclouds the imaginations of men of science as well as theologians. Nor will any system of dynamics and statics ever account for a universe which is a cosmos, until it shall rise to a comprehension of the dynamics of the Divine Power of Thought thinking a cosmos, and those statics of equilibrium, which amount to the Divine Remembrance, wherein is the stability of the universe so far as stable, and its permanence in so far as it is permanent. But over and above the mathematical dynamics and statics of mere physicists and "positive' science, there is seen by all that look, having eyes to see, that order, plan, purpose, artistic design, and divine beauty in the creation, which are nowhere in nature, nor anywhere else but in the absurd fantasies of men, the work of anything but artistically creative thought.

Humboldt, setting forth the Aspects of Nature with scientific reference to physical laws and forces, and noting everywhere a certain conformity of the vegetable and animal kingdoms to existing physical conditions, dwells

with the admiration of the poet upon the singular beauty of the palm, towering far above the surrounding forest, in the valley of the Amazon; and he enters into an elaborate consideration of the physical forces acting from within the plant, outwardly, against the opposing external forces, under natural laws and physical conditions, and in accordance with mathematics, in the exact balance of which, the tree at length stands forth a Palm. But there is observable here, also, what is apparent in that balance of forces, this striking fact, that the tree with its foliage, flowers, and fruit, (which might have taken many other and perhaps ugly shapes, under these same conditions, and in an exact balance of forces, too,) in fact, comes forth in just that outline which makes it an object of exquisite beauty, exhibiting an artistic form and a design so admirable that the most skilful human artist is unable to surpass it, in his conception, or on the canvas. And at the same time, under the same general laws and conditions, and in varying particular conditions, come forth, also, all the artistic variety and beauty of an Amazonian forest; as if not a mere mathematician, much less a blind, accidental balance of forces, but a mathematical artist, had done it; for it is essentially, from the first germ-cell to the full-grown tree, Artist-Mind work.

If an artist will sculpture an Apollo, he first conceives the idea, or image, of an Apollo in his mind. If another man were endowed with a faculty of vision to see into his mind, as he actually sees into the mind of the Creator, he would behold the Apollo standing therein as a fact as indubitable as the palm on the banks of the Amazon. The artist can hold the imaged conception there as long as he can keep his mind fixed on thinking the object; that is, as long as he can actually remember it. If he change his thought, and let the conception vanish, he may by recollection re-create it, or he may create another in its place; or, if he please, he may, with his chisel, transfer and fix his