without superficies; superficies without body; and body without its accidents: as distinctly each one, as though they had never been united. And thus it is, that it penetrates into the recesses of all things, not only dividing them as wholes, into their more conspicuous parts, but persisting till it even separate those elementary principles which, being blended together after a more mysterious manner, are united in the minutest part as much as in the mightiest whole."--Harris's Hermes, p. 307.
9. It is remarkable that this philosopher, who had so sublime conceptions of the powers of the human mind, and who has displayed such extraordinary acuteness in his investigations, has represented the formation of words, or the utterance of language, as equalling in speed the progress of our very thoughts; while, as we have seen, an other author, of great name, avers, that thought is "as instantaneous as the impression of light on the eye." Philosophy here too evidently nods. In showing the advantage of words, as compared with pictures, Harris says, "If we consider the ease and speed with which words are formed,-an ease which knows no trouble or fatigue, and a speed which equals the progress of our very thoughts,[38]--we may plainly perceive an answer to the question here proposed, Why, in the common intercourse of men with men, imitations have been rejected, and symbols preferred."--Hermes, p. 336. Let us hear a third man, of equal note: "Words have been called winged; and they well deserve that name, when their abbreviations are compared with the progress which speech could make without these inventions; but, compared with the rapidity of thought, they have not the smallest claim to that title. Philosophers have calculated the difference of velocity between sound and light; but who will attempt to calculate the difference between speech and thought!"--Horne Tooke's Epea Pteroenta, Vol. i, p. 23.
10. It is certain, that, in the admirable economy of the creation, natures subordinate are made, in a wonderful manner, subservient to the operations of the higher; and that, accordingly, our first ideas are such as are conceived of things external and sensible. Hence all men whose intellect appeals only to external sense, are prone to a philosophy which reverses the order of things pertaining to the mind, and tends to materialism, if not to atheism. "But"--to refer again to Harris--"the intellectual scheme which never forgets Deity, postpones every thing corporeal to the primary mental Cause. It is here it looks for the origin of intelligible ideas, even of those which exist in human capacities. For though sensible objects may be the destined medium to awaken the dormant energies of man's understanding, yet are those energies themselves no more contained, in sense, than the explosion of a cannon, in the spark which gave it fire. In short, all minds that are, are similar and congenial; and so too are their ideas, or intelligible forms. Were it otherwise, there could be no intercourse between man and man, or (what is more important) between man and God."--Hermes, p. 393.
11. A doctrine somewhat like this, is found in the Meditations of the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, though apparently repugnant to the polytheism commonly admitted by the Stoics, to whom he belonged: "The world, take it all together, is but one; there is but one sort of matter to make it of, one God to govern it, and one law to guide it. For, run through the whole system of rational beings, and you will find reason and truth but single and the same. And thus beings of the same kind, and endued with the same reason, are made happy by the same exercises of it."--Book vii, Sec. 9. Again: "Let your soul receive the Deity as your blood does the air; for the influences of the one are no less vital, than those of the other. This correspondence is very practicable: for there is an ambient omnipresent Spirit, which lies as open and pervious to your mind, as the air you breathe does to your lungs: but then you must remember to be disposed to draw it."--Book viii, Sec. 54; Collier's Translation.
