VII. LETTER VII. SKETCH OF THE PECULIARITIES WHICH DISTINGUISH HUMAN LETTER THE first part of our historical outline has been considered in the Letters of our former Volume. These laid before you a general sketch of the geological structure of the surface rocks of our globe, with its ocean and atmosphere, and of the vegetable and animal classes which were chosen to be its additional accompaniments. A concise notice was taken of the Paradise which was formed within it, and in which the first beings of the human figure and qualities were stationed immediately after their creation. It is from this point that we will begin our further considerations upon them, and of the designs and course of Providence in their history and in that of human nature. There is a connection between their history and that of their descendants which cannot be obliterated, and deserves our candid and philosophical investigation. As human nature appears to have been a special invention of the Creator, which does not, as far as we can perceive, extend to any other sphere-unless the constitution of the planets Mars and Venus resembles ours sufficiently to admit of beings like ourselves inhabiting their surfaces-let us first consider, more particularly than we have yet done, what it is that peculiarly makes a human being. VII. With just notions on this point we shall the better LETTER understand the schemes and purposes of Providence in the history of Mankind, and its dealings towards them. The first peculiarity that we may notice is the INTELLIGENT SOUL, which all the human race possess, united with their material frame. Brutes have both a fleshly substance and mental faculty, as we before remarked, with several properties analogous to ours; but these are so limited in all their similarities, and so withheld from advancing beyond the boundary prescribed, that their mind cannot be the same mind of immaterial being as our spirit. The intellect which Man possesses has, in addition to all that brutes enjoy, so many greater powers and qualities which they have never exhibited, nor can be trained to acquire; and the human capacity has been so progressive, and displays such a continuous improveability, that we are justified in deeming our soul to be a distinct genus of intelligent nature, superior to every other sentient and perceiving principle that has yet appeared in our terrestrial companions.' 1 Cicero felt and wrote strongly of the superiority of man to every other earthly animal. He remarks, How many excellencies God has bestowed upon mankind! He has raised them from the ground and made them lofty and erect, that by contemplating the skies they might attain a knowlege of the gods. For men are not upon the earth as mere cultivators or inhabitants, but rather as spectators of the things above and of the heavenly powers-a spectacle which no other kind of animal beings is conscious of.' 6 After describing our senses, he adds, Every sense of man by far excels the senses of the beasts; but as to the soul and mind of man, his reason, his wisdom, his forethought; he who does not perceive that these have been perfected by a Divine care, must be deficient in them himself. We build cities, walls, houses and temples. We turn to our use the acute senses of the elephant and the sagacity of the dog. We dig the iron from the caverns of the earth, and discover the veins LETTER VII. The soul of Man is therefore entitled to a separate and discriminating name, as much as a lion or any other quadruped has an appellation distinguishing it from an insect. All languages, at least of civilized nations, have a term of this sort; and as the Greeks marked it by their Yux, or Psyche, and the Latins by their Anima, and at times by their Animus, so in our English language, as in its parent the AngloSaxon, the word Soul has been always appropriated to designate the living and thinking faculty, which exclusively animates the human frame. Most nations, whether civilized or savage, feel it to be a living something, distinct from the body, and not ceasing to be when that perishes." veins of copper, silver and gold. Man alone has any government over the winds and the sea. He also rules the land. We enjoy the fields and the mountains. The rivers are ours; the lakes are ours. We sow corn; we plant trees; we fertilize the earth by canals; we conduct and alter the course of rivers. We make a new nature in the midst of Nature herself. Has not our reason penetrated to the heavens? We alone of all animals perceive the motions of the stars. We have acquired a knowlege of the Divinity. From hence arises Piety. With that, justice is associated and all the other virtues. How greatly then does man excel every other animal! How impossible is it that such a figure, such an arrangement of limbs, and such a force of mind and genius could have arisen from chance!' Cic. Nat. Deor. 1. ii. p. 173-7. 2 The immortality of the soul was one of the distinguishing doctrines of Socrates, and the assertion of it formed the great charm of the Phædon to Cicero, and to the most enlightened Romans. It became Plato's most valued work, for this reason, and for detailing the last conversation of Socrates with his friends just before he took the sentenced poison. A short extract on this point may interest you, as showing his mode of teaching: 'S. Answer me, what is that which, when in the body, makes it alive?-Kebes. The soul. 'S. Will it always be so?-K. How can it be otherwise? 'S. Will the soul, then, always bring life to whatever it occupies? K. Certainly. 'S. Is there any thing contrary to life, or nothing?-K. There is. 'S. What? 125 VII. Of this soul we have no perceptive knowlege, LETTER except from our consciousness and experience of its actions, feelings and effects, as it is too immaterial in its nature to be a subject of our material senses. It displays its qualities and its capacity by its sensibilities and agency; and all that we know from authority of its essential being is, that it is an emanation from the Divine nature, expressed in human language as the breath of God. No origin could lead us to expect more excelling properties in it, nor more safely justify our highest appretiation of it. It is always treated in the Scriptures as having a sublime relation of this sort, and more especially by our Saviour and His Apostles, in several very important passages, awfully grand be willingly forgotten. sented, as capable of such improvement, as to be in communion with his God, as to be, or with the power of attaining to be, a partaker of Divine nature,* as an eventual possessor of the fulness of the Deity, and even to become so ameliorated and 'S. What?-K. Death. and exciting, and never to 'S. Will the soul receive the contrary to what it introduces?— K. By no means. 'S. But what do we call that which does not receive death ?K. Immortal. 'S. The soul will not receive death, you say?-K. No. 'S. Is the soul then immortal?-K. It is immortal. 'S. When therefore death comes upon a man, what is mortal in him perishes, as it is seen to do; but what is immortal withdraws itself from death, safe and uncorrupted ?-K. This is clear. 'S. We may then be sure that more than all things, O Kebes! the soul is immortal and incorruptible, and that our souls will be in existence in Hades.' Plat. Phædo, c. 39, 40. 3 Ep. Cor. c. xiii. v. 14. Ev. John, xiv. v. 23. 1 John Ep. i. v. 3; c. iii. v. 24; c. iv. v. 15, 16. Ep. St. Peter, c. ii. v. 4. Heb. xii. v. 10. 5 Ep. St. Paul Eph. iii. v. 19. VII. LETTER exalted, that the Creator can have such intellectual association or intercourse with it, as to dwell within it, and to be in a state of unity with it." Possibilities, attainabilities, improvements or destinies, grander than these expressions imply, no language can express, and no being receive.' Yet these ennobling ideas are used by those, who also call upon us to remember our co-existing imperfections and errors; our unworthiness, our selfnothingness, and that state of mind and conduct which they characterize as human sin. Both these representations compose a picture of human nature with very striking contrasts-a surprising mixture of perfections and deformities; the most brilliant splendor with the darkest shadows; but it is the true delineation of our intermingled character and most mysterious nature; no one that is not absorbed with egotism but must know it to be so. We must all feel within us continual indications of both these qualities. It is a boyish inexperience only which can regale itself in the contemplation of its selfelating excellencies, and forget or not perceive the 6 St. John, c. xvii. v. 11. 21-23; c. xiv. v. 20. 7 The conclusion which Socrates drew from his doctrine was thus expressed by him to another of his young attending friends: On account of what I have mentioned, O Simmias! we should do every thing now, that we may become in this life partakers of virtue and wise judgment; for the reward is beautiful and the hope is grand. From the effect of these things, he may have a good hope for his soul, who, avoiding the pleasures and ornaments of the body as foreign to it, thinks that he may do far greater things; and by decorating his spirit with its true and proper adornments, with temperance, and justice, and fortitude, and liberty, and truth, waits for the time of his migration to Hades, ready to go whenever summoned by fate. But mine is now calling me. It is time for me to bathe. It will save the women trouble in their after offices, if I wash myself before I take the poison.' Plato, Phæd. c. 46, 47. |