Spirit and Form, which I propose to consider with reference. to an aesthetic and practical, rather than a metaphysical, or theological use.

All are familiar with the common distinction between mind and matter, soul and body, thought and expression. It is much the same as that between spirit and form. The distinction is real, is universal. It is found in all times, and in all languages. It pervades the universe. Indeed we may say, without affecting philosophical precision, that spirit and form are the only two things in existence; and while distinct, are generally found conjoined, the one being the symbol, analogon, or expression of the other. At any rate, it will be admitted that all beings and all modes of being, all thought and all embodiment of thought, range themselves under these two heads.

Even if we allow to each finite spirit a distinct personality; nay more, if we allow to matter a real, though not independent existence, we have in the universe only God and his creation, man, or angel, and his creation; in other words, infinite spirit, with its appropriate form or expression, and finite spirit, with its appropriate form or expression. Matter, however substantial it may be deemed, after all is only a more perfect and striking form. It is fluent, it is infinitely divisible, it changes, and passes away. Hence it is difficult to conceive of body, except as the shadow or reflection of mind. If separate from spirit, after all it comes from spirit. The material creation itself is but the garment of the Almighty. We do not indeed mean to say, that the whole is simply ideal; far from it. The external universe exists, exists for us, and has the qualities which we ascribe to it. But it does not exist per se. It is dependent, dependent upon spirit. It began with time, it exists by sufferance, exists as a form, and as a form it may vanish away.

If this be so, the import of matter is not to be sought in itself, but in mind. The whole visible creation is a symbol, or hieroglyph, or, if you please, a system of symbols or hieroglyphs. Thought, immaterial and eternal, is the key to reveal its secrets.

There was a time when form (as known to us) did not exist,-when the universe was all spirit-all God. Selfsubsistent and self-satisfying, the absolute Truth, the uncreated Beauty, Goodness, and Power, was a single spiritual Essence. Active as spirit, conscious too and ever-blessed, God was simply and absolutely THE ALL. Form he had none. For, a pure spirit, boundless and eternal, has no shape nor dimen

sions, no lines nor outlines. All form, such as we conceive it, all form, we mean, which is a reality and not a metaphysical abstraction, must be projected into space, must occupy some specific and limited sphere. However attenuated, it has some line or boundary, some aspect or shape, these being inseparable from the very idea of form.

If such a thing as a "spiritual form" exist, or what has been styled "the reduplication of an infinite consciousness," or of an infinite Essence," which, by a figure of speech, borrowed from matter, may be called the Logos, or image of God, it does not partake of the nature of body at all, and indeed is bound-less and form-less, as it is uncreated and eternal. It is in the very nature of God to be without bounds or limits of any kind, so that a mere form, however vast, can never make the slightest approximation to his essential or absolute nature. Spirit is one and indivisible; form is manifold, the creature of space and time. And hence the whole exterior or created universe, even if spoken of as the shadow of the Almighty, can be so only by a figure of speech. In comparison with the one Infinite Being, all worlds, magnificent and manifold, are but "the shadow of a shade,"—as it were, the dim, though beautiful adumbration of his eternal power and Godhead. God only hath immortality. He alone is infinite, absolute, eternal.

But "in the beginning," at some specific time in the immeasurable ages of eternity, God created the heavens and the earth. God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Matter and form, vast, various, and beautiful, sprang into existence. Before, they were not-now, they began to be, because the Almighty so willed it,—that is, as in ordinary phrase we express it, God created or made them. But how did he create or make them? By "calling things that are not as though they were," that is, by making something out of nothing? But how can no-thing ever become some-thing; how can non-existence ever be made existence ? If by these questions we refer to the secret process by which the Infinite produces the finite, the One the many, the matter involves an inscrutable mystery. For, to say that God created the universe out of or from nothing, is to say that he created it in spite of nothing, or when there was nothing, but Himself. Nothing is a nonentity,-God then only remains; and if he produces finite beings and worlds, he produces them from Himself. Pre-existent materials, physical or spiritual, except himself, there were none. He filled the infinite,

*Meaning by this, absolute existence.

was the infinite,-in a word, was THE ALL. Moreover, he was the All, as spirit, formless and eternal. What then was produced at the creation, was produced, though not in any gross and carnal sense, from God. He made it from his own boundless energy, his own ineffable resources. It is different from Himself only as it is finite and formal, but it comes from Himself, and must be the image of his excellence, the echo of his glory. Indeed it is Himself, embodied and revealed; for now God is not only THE ALL, but he is IN ALL. True, finite forms, and even finite spirits, metaphysically speaking, are not God, from the very fact that they are finite and formal; but without God they cannot exist. They are separate from God, but not independent, for while projected into the realms of space and time, they live and have their being in Him alone. The finite world, whether of matter or of mind, lies in the infinite. Dissevered from the Deity, it ceases to exist. Man breathes, and the worlds roll, only by his fiat. Still, finite forms and things, properly speaking, are not phantoms, having an existence only relatively to the minds that conceive them; no, they are proper existences, which come from God and partake in some sense, not fully developed, of the Divine nature. Whatever they are, it is evident that they discover or reveal his being and attributes. The finite ever suggests the Infinite, ever images or symbolizes the Infinite. God is in all things as their foundation, their life, beauty, and perfection. Of course he is above them, because he is infinite; but he is in them, for they have no life separate from Him, no meaning or end independent of Him. The whole created universe mirrors His eternal perfection. All beauty is his image, all eloquence his echo, all grandeur his form.

So also man, who as a finite spirit is created in the image of God, possesses the high power of embodying or expressing himself in specific shapes. In his way, he reveals himself to himself, and to others, by means of symbols or forms. He thus perpetuates his existence and influence in the world, passes into other minds, transmits himself across oceans and continents, nay, makes himself known and felt in all coming time. Moses, Homer, Plato, Milton, are yet known, and will be known and felt, it may be, for ever, in the forms which they produced in the long-vanished past. All indeed are thus transmitting themselves, and so, while passing away, are also passing on, with the flow of the ages. Souls may be gone, but forms, symbols, utterances, influences remain, and remain as vehicles or expressions of soul. So that in this respect, the dead are more influential than the living. We see them, hear

them, feel them, obey them, more than all our contemporaries. In a word, man has the divine capacity of embodiment, that is, of expression and utterance. He does not indeed create, in the absolute sense of the expression, for he ever works with pre-existent materials; and yet he does something analogous to creation, whenever he gives embodiment to his interior conceptions, and goes forth into space and time by invented forms. By this means, as if in imitation of Him who said, "Let there be light, and there was light," he projects himself into the universe around him in shapes and structures, beautiful and permanent as the everlasting hills. In this sense, indeed, every man is a poet, a noinens, a maker, or producer. Whether he will it or no, he gives body and expression to his interior or spiritual states, and they live after him, to bless or to curse the world. And especially is this true of all powerful and inventive minds, who are hailed as the makers or poets of the beautiful and true in outward shape or form,

"Bodying forth the forms of things unknown,

*

*

* And giving to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name."

Thus spirit is original and fundamental; form, including matter, utterance, language, derived and dependent. Matter has its meaning from God, language from man, perhaps we ought to say, from God and man combined; for, whether the power of language, or expression, be regarded as original or derived, taught by inspiration or flowing from the spontaneous action of the human soul, it is equally from God, and equally from man. Spirit, whether it exist as finite or infinite, is invisible and inscrutable; form, visible and known, is the manifestation or expression of spirit. "No man hath seen God at any time"; indeed, no man hath ever seen himself, or any other man, as an essential spirit. In this respect man is as inscrutable as God. The one is no more seen, no more known, except through outward forms. All that can be seen is shape, all that can be heard is utterance, or sound; in a word, all that can be seen, heard, or known, in an outward way, is the mysterious but not unmeaning echo of interior spirit.

Through form, then, spirit is discovered, through form it is communicated. Into this channel pour themselves all the thoughts, feelings, and purposes of finite, nay more, of infinite existence. Through this rush the streams both of time and eternity.

Thus we have God concealed, and God manifested. "Ver

VOL. XV.-NO. LXII.

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His

ily thou art a God that hidest thyself!" exclaims the prophet, with a sublime significance. "The invisible God" is an expression as Scriptural as it is philosophical. In this respect, God may be said to be utterly unknown and ineffable. essential nature is a fathomless abyss. Limit or relation, aspect or shape, it has none. Absolute and all-sufficient, he fills eternity, and can be spoken of only as BEING,―as the I AM THAT I AM,-as the PERFECT, the WONDERFUL, the UNKNOWN. Yet God is seen, is known, as revealed or manifested. He takes form, and goes forth in the magnificence of the physical creation, in the splendor of the starry heavens, in the beauty and fruitfulness of the earth. He walks upon the sea, vast and multitudinous, the symbol of eternity; "glasses himself in tempests," rides upon the whirlwind and directs the storm. We hear him, feel him, passing in glory and in joy through the rock-ribbed mountains, the "wide old woods," and the pastures of the wilderness. We meet him in all the forms of animals, in all the movements of society, in our own bodies and souls, fearfully and wonderfully made, and throbbing, so to speak, with the burden of the Divine. In a word, the Uncreated reveals himself in creation, the Infinite in finite shape and form. Within us and around us the Absolute and Unutterable is felt and known; so that, in this respect, we "know," as St. Paul suggests, that which "passeth knowledge."

So also the spirit of man, finite though it be, is, in itself, equally unknown and inscrutable. Its origin, its mode of existence, and the element, or rather essence, of its interior being, utterly transcends all powers of thought. It cannot be known even to itself, except through media. Subsequently it may transcend these, and so become conscious of itself by a pure intuition; but its first movement is one of contact with external or internal energies or impressions. As a pure essence, man is a mystery as profound as that of God, whose child he is; for man, as a spirit, is made in "the image of God." We cannot see him, hear him, feel him, know him, until manifested by forms. Nay, he cannot know himself till reflected to himself in sensible images and impressions. Soul and body, nature and man, must come together, that thought, feeling, and affection may spring to life.

Spirit, then, is original and fundamental; form is subsequent and dependent. Spirit is the cause, form the effect. Spirit is the producer, form the result. Spirit is supreme-is the one essential thing in the universe; form is agent and instrument. Form is valuable only as the vehicle of spirit,