'SEER,' again, is simply one who sees-a see-erwhose Eye has been unsealed to the "open secret" of the universe, in Fichte's grand thought-a secret hidden from the wise and prudent (in their own imaginings), and yet 'revealed' revelo unveiled to those exercising the faith and the humility of babes. Nor does there exist the problem for which benign Nature will not give the response, will we but wisely and trustingly interrogate her. For we know that she

"Never did betray

The heart that loved her."

"The answer lies around, written in all colors and motions, uttered in all tones of jubilee and wail, in thousand-figured, thousand-voiced, harmonious nature; but where is the cunning eye to whom that God-written apocalypse will yield articulate meaning? We sit as in a boundless phantasmagoria and dreamgrotto; boundless, for the faintest star, the remotest century, lies not even nearer the verge thereof; sounds and varied-colored visions flit around our sense; but Him, the unslumbering, whose work both dream and dreamer are, we see not-except in rare, half-waking moments, suspect not."

Sartor Resartus.

Sight is the most spiritual of the senses. Through Sight the structure of the world is revealed. Through it the perception of identity, growths, processes, vistas. Hence the breadth of the significance of this sense in the nomenclature of Science. If Sight carries with it the architecture of the world, Sound brings the universal solvent which whirls matter back to primal æther. In melody Nature whispers to man the secret confessions of her plan. Oken asserts that melody is the voice of the universe whereby it proclaims its scheme or its innermost essence. They at least know this who have felt the mystical o'ermastering of Music. Music is a passionate yearning after more primeval natures.

The contributions of the Senses to Words are by no means exhausted. But the principle does not lead far. It is when the creative Reason, the idealizing Imagination begin their work, loading words with new burdens of meaning, that the master-workings of the mind in speech appear. And for a theory of speech somewhat progressive is required.

RAMBLE THIRD.

THE IDEALISM OF WORDS.

"Rendering apparent the images of unapparent natures And inscribing the unapparent in the apparent frame of the ZOROASTER.

world."

MAN is an idealist. Of this idealism Language is a primitive expression. For Nature, too, is emblematic. There is that subtle consanguinity between Nature and the Soul that the laws of man's mentality have the power to unlock the phenomena of the world. There is a saying reported of Zoroaster, and coming from the deeps of forty centuries, that "the congruities of material forms to the laws of the soul are divine allurements," and that was a sublime audacity of Paracelsus that "those who would understand the course of the heavens above must first of all recognize the heaven in man."

With passionate profusion Nature pours her splendid solicitations on man. Flood and firmament, light and night, bird and flower, woo him with their sweet eternal persuasions:

"A rainbow, a sunbeam,

A subtle smell that spring unbinds,
Dead pause abrupt of midnight winds,
An echo or a dream,"-

all speak to the listening soul a strange yet unmistakable language; and to me, even

"The meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

This idealism of language rests on no whim, but is a primary and necessary fact. Up from the core of nature comes this wondrous symbolism. Words are emblematic because things are emblematic. And as Nature stands the splendid fable of spirit, so the informing Imagination converts the language of outward phenomena into types of the mind. There is no term applied to a metaphysical or moral fact but which, when opened up, is found to be the translation of some fact in nature. 'FERVOR' simply means heat; 'TRACTABLE,' that may be drawn along; 'ABUNDANCE' images an overflowing cup and 'TRANSGRESSION' is the crossing of the line that divides right

The Idealism of Words VIVERSITY

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33

CALIFORNIA.

speak of

from wrong. In like manner, when
one's taking 'UMBRAGE' we simply idealize a shadow,
umbra-the dark shade that passes over one's mind.
'SUPERCILIOUS' is a picturesque translation of the
act of raising the eyebrows or supercilium-the natural
expression of hauteur. And a 'SCRUPLE' (of con-
science) is a vivid rendering of the scrupulus or little
bits of gravel that used to get into the very open
shoes of the Romans, and produce trouble and
hesitancy.

This allegory runs through the warp and woof of language. It is a primary act of the word-forming faculties, which take up a natural symbol and enshrine for ever within it a thought. Let us trace some of the workings of this wondrous law.

What an image of fractious human passions must have filled the mind of that poet who first spoke about 'REFRAINING' therefrom-that is reining (frænum) them in, curbing them with bit and bridle! How faithfully, too, is the subtracting one part from a fault and subduing another, thus as it were thinning it out, expressed in our 'EXTENUATE' (tenuis, thin): and how deep was his knowledge of human nature who first characterized that peering into another's faults and failings as 'SUSPICION.' Could aught be more descriptive, and at the same time convey a better moral,