1. Cuba and the Cubans. Comprising a History of the Island of Cuba, its present Social, Political, and Domestic Condition; also its Relation to England and the United 2. Letter of Mr. Everett to the Comte de Sartiges. VII. THE USE AND MISUSE of Words Thesaurus of English Words, so classified and arranged as to facilitate the Expression of Ideas and assist in Lit- erary Composition. By PETER MARK ROGET. Revised and edited, with a List of Foreign Words, defined in Eng- lish, and other Additions. By BARNAS SEARS, D.D. 1. Voyage en Chine et dans les Mers et Archipels de cet Empire pendant les Années 1847, 1848, 1849, 1850. 2. History of the Insurrection in China; with Notices of the Christianity, Creed, and Proclamations of the Insur- IX. MARTINEAU'S TRANSLATION OF COMTE'S PHILOSOPHY . 200 The Positive Philosophy of AUGUSTE COMTE, freely Annual of Scientific Discovery: or, Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art, for 1854. Edited by David A. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CLXIV. JULY, 1854. ART. I.-The Moral Significance of the Crystal Palace: A Sermon, preached first to his own Congregation, and repeated in the Church of the Messiah, on Sunday Evening, October 30, 1853. By REV. H. W. BELLOWS, Pastor of the First Congregational Society in the City of New York. New York. (Published by Request of the Government of the Crystal Palace.) G. P. Putnam & Co. 1853. THE great continents of truth have been for the most part mapped out and explored. There remains the vast ocean of speculation, sweeping around the firm continents, and challenging adventure. Shifting as are the waves and currents of this sea, it has calm depths of meditation, from which innumerable islands of coral grow up, as solid as the old territories of human thought, and lift their luxuriant crests into clear sunshine. A hundred mariners may have caught a glimpse of these, or may have run close alongside and recorded some description of them; but no one of them may have landed, and taken the pains to explore mount and cape, stream and cave and shaded recess. Such an island has been distinctly touched upon, in the discourse which introduces and illustrates the train of thought now proposed. The whole sermon broadly and beauti fully evolving the "union of man with man, of man with nature, and of man with God," as taught by the World's Fair demands a thoughtful perusal. But we have to do, now, only with the following passage: "The view of the Exhibition unites man to God, not only by awakening sentiments of humility, wonder, gratitude, and praise, but also by illustrating, in an affecting and emphatic manner, the partnership of God with men, and men with God. Man is not only a partaker in the Divine nature, but a partner in God's business. My Father worketh hitherto,' said our Saviour, and I work.' Heavenly capital and earthly labor compose the firm in God's providence. Nature is the clay, man is the tool. God made them both; and his will unites them in the production of that more finished nature we name Art. In the end, all things are of God, for marble and sculptor, pigment and painter, ore and founder, woof and weaver, materials and skill, opportunity and genius, are all of Him, and through Him, and to Him; but looked at in the wiser and more practical way of distribution, God's part and man's part, in the great plan of Providence, are capable of being discriminated, and the satisfaction of a voluntary partnership in a common work may be noted and enjoyed. And surely nothing is more striking, in an exhibition like the present, than the evidence afforded of the aptness of nature to man's wants, and the aptness of man to nature's development and use. How palpable the profound design entertained by Providence, of awakening and educating man's soul through the necessity under which he lies of subduing and regulating the material world! When we remember that there is nothing in science and art which is not a product of man's mind and will operating on crude matter, and that no invention is anything but a discovery, an adaptation that previously existed, -no accommodation of any substance, more than the use of an original fitness, we begin to catch the glorious and affecting harmony existing between matter and mind, the earth and man, or God's providence and man's labor. Take the two materials of which the Crystal Palace is made, iron and glass. Can any substances be less fitted to human use, for purposes of strength and transparency, than ore and sand? They bear no resemblance in appearance, or even in qualities, to the products of which they form the base. But does any one the less doubt that iron and glass are the final cause of ore and sand, and that God intended that human genius should discover and apply them to the uses they so perfectly serve? What can be less like a regulated power, practicable in use and universal in application, than steam? or less seizable and governable than electricity? or more intractable and remote from usefulness than the elastic gum of Para? Yet is man to be esteemed the sole patentee of the steam-engine, the absolute creator of the magnetic telegraph, the unassisted contriver of the uses of India-rubber? Have not these various elements and substances been patiently seeking their natural and appropriate ends; knocking at the door of the human mind to unlock their passages to usefulness; and vindicating in their vast triumphs not more the genius of man than the beneficence and foreordination of God? Is not nature full of undiscovered springs of health, wealth, usefulness, all waiting the willow-wand of a more delicate observation to point tremblingly to their source, and open it to their proprietors and lords, the human race? In the divine sympathy or primordial correlation of nature and man,- of divine laws and human uses of them, — of material elements and mental appropriation or accommodation of them, of nature and humanity, - we behold the grandest and most glorious proof of the being of that God, that wonderful Designer, whose plan, as it opens, shows an infinite forecast, and of the patience, wisdom, benevolence, of that Providence, which keeps his own gifts half hidden, half revealed, that they may be received with the best advantage of his creatures, while he strictly subordinates the material world to the spiritual discipline and moral victory of his rational offspring." This extract is a coast-wise, yet commanding, view of the island of thought, whereon we have landed, to enjoy a ramble in search of nutritious fruits and fresh scenery, rather than to institute a scientific exploration. The useful arts, more than the fine, will be kept in mind, the former having a more immediate interest for men, particularly in a Crusoe adventure. Cowper's expression of piety and poetry,-" God made the country and man made the town," - has passed into a doctrine, like many other utterances of profound feeling. The words are often quoted to express a love for nature, and an aversion to the haunts of pride and misery; but the language, if strictly taken, implies that the Creator had no purpose that the materials he has supplied should be fashioned into beautiful villages and splendid cities; that he gave man no instinct or skill so to use them, and laid upon him no such necessity; and that, so employed, the materials exhibit no new beauty and fitness, or, if they do, that the glory of it belongs to man, not to his Maker. Natural Theology has taken it for granted, that its inquiries are limited to unmodified nature; and, accordingly, the theologian, like an Indian or bison, keeps him self carefully beyond the borders of civilization; he sees nothing Divine in his mechanical surroundings; he ascends to the stars, or flees to the uttermost parts of the sea, whenever he would illustrate the attributes of the Infinite One. The Bridgewater Treatise on the Adaptation of the External World to Man, is the nearest approach to a formal statement of the subject in hand; but the author discourses of climate, season, soil, grain, and raw material, with reference to the necessities, not the instincts and genius, of man; he beholds Divine wisdom in the rough substance, rather than in the beautiful product. In various books are paragraphs and allusions which more or less vaguely recognize the divine in Art, but nothing, probably, more direct, unless it be a partial exception in Ruskin's" Modern Painters." Art, or some work of art, is frequently called divine, in the classic sense, however, of beautiful only. It is sometimes said, that Art is a part of Nature, and a "higher nature," higher nature," - words that look towards the shore of thought on which we have set foot. But the truth is not followed in its leadings. It seems to have been assumed that the Great Artist had nothing but a general and indefinite design in the creation of finite artists and artisans, and in the endowment of matter with susceptibilities of reconstruction into endless forms of use and elegance. It appears to have been inferred, that whatever man transforms, by his divinely received wisdom, to other shapes, ceases to be the work of the Almighty, and thenceforth bears less, instead of frequently more, of the impress of His hand. This prevailing sentiment is manifested in many ways. The stereotyped question of village lyceums, whether "the works of Nature are more wonderful than those of Art," is surrendered, in the end, to the affirmative, the young disputants yielding to an amiable candor, or to an unconscious fear that Dame Nature, like other dames, may somehow punish a seeming undervaluation of her dignity. Fugitives from the summer disagreeablenesses of towns, and they who are driven forth by fashion, laud the country at the expense of the city, in a threadbare litany of praise, whether or not they have any true sympathy with nature. A mixture of the artificial and natural in wild scenery is always a lucky text for cant sentimentality. |