nature, that imminent spiritual force shall implant the likeness of that highest interiorly within it, and which it is tending towards, upon each plane of life in turn as it brings it forth, according to the degree of its receptivity; till ultimately that highest (on earth) is reached, and the end of the material creation attained in the production of the relatively perfect physical organization of man, Thus all the gradations of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, from the lowest to the highest, are disposed ideally round, and linked together by, a central stem, as it were, reaching through them from bottom to top; and though each class when grown outward from the central type remains what it has become and is known to us as class, family, genus, species this or that, according to its position and point of striking off, yet these are but modifications, passing outgrowths, of the central type, which, while thus liberal in scattering its outgrowths (and all of the typal pattern), is ever pressing upward to the last in a given definite direction, and binding all in one. But, in the endeavour to become abstractly clear, I am merely repeating myself. Pass, then, to the concrete, and let us there restate. This scheme holds that there are in creation simple original vegetable forms some of which became, at a certain low indeterminate stage, capable of receiving the animal impress from the spiritual world, while the great bulk remained on their own plane and formed vegetation ;1 that these now simple animal forms, by a law of inherent growth plus their relation to external circumstances (natural selection), became modified into the divergent forms next above; some of whom, again, by the same laws, became capable, through their parents' forms, of a yet higher influx; and so on, step by step, into Articulates, say,which, again, propagate on their own plane; thus, through a central line of growth, whatever that shall prove to be, into the last or vertebrate type, through the order which shall be finally demonstrated. These vertebrates also have their successive developments round the central type, whether of fish or reptile, bird or mammal, the central type of which last, again, becomes, at the long length, the rude and simple savage man. It is thus that the heterogeneous mass of facts is unified. I intensely disrelish this general mode of stating facts, but there is no help for it. What I want to say through it is this, that the evolution of life in the material world is but a means of bringing into 1 Of course the protoplasm of that vegetation will not then be transmutable into animal forms. gradual objectivity and definite organized form those powers involved in the "something of God" which constitutes the spiritual world; and that such evolution is there manifest, though brokenly at present, as to details, in the complete general outline from least to highest, and in the connection of all through a central type. We conclude, then, that man was not brought into being by an express act of creation; and I think it is clear, in the main, how such an idea is consistent with a Spiritual Philosophy which conceives "the creation of the universe and all things therein by continual mediations from the First." What objections there are, from "breaks," in the order, etc., will be considered hereafter when we speak of Darwinism and Evolution; but we shall proceed in next discourse to the second head of this subject, the further development of Man from his rudimental savage state.1 THOMAS CHILN. LETTERS OF KINGSLEY'S ON MARRIAGE. I. "EVERSLEY, 16th March 1859. ... "I WISH you would give me the chapter and page in which Swedenborg handles your text (Matt. xxii. 24-28). There are so many noble and beautiful things in that text-book of his, and I should like to see what he makes of so puzzling a passage. It seems to me that we must look at it from the standpoint of the Sadducees, and therefore of our Lord as condescending to them. It is a hideous case in itself. . . . I conceive the Jews had no higher notion than this of the relation of the sexes. Perhaps no Eastern people ever had. The conception of a love-match belongs to our Teutonic race, and was our heritage (so Jacitus says with awe and astonishment) when we were heathens in the German forests. You will find nothing of it in Scripture after the first chapter of Genesis, save a glimpse thereof (but only a glimpse) in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. To me who believe the ་ 1 I have not gone at all, though reluctantly refraining from going, into the special facts by which the "Descent of Man" is traceable. Whoso wishes to do that may read Darwin's book on the subject. Of course Darwin looks at the question from the natural side, and by so much we may find his theory halting. An excellent book for a general, reliable, and correct idea of the whole subject (again I mean on the natural side) is St. George Mivart's "Genesis of Species" (Macmillan. 9s.). Read also Huxley's "American Addresses." (Same publisher. 6s. 6d.) Gospel of St. John, and believe, therefore, that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, was the light and life of my German forefathers, as well as of the Jews, there is nothing strange in this. I only say, Christ has taught us something about wedlock which He did not teach the Jews. That He taught it is proved by its fruits; for what has produced more of nobleness, more of practical good, in the human race, than the chivalrous idea of wedlock which our Teutonic race holds, and which the: Romance or Popish races of Europe have never to this day grasped with any firm hold? Therefore, all I can say about the text is (about marriage in the world to come), that it has naught to do with me and my wife. I know that if immortality is to include in my case identity of person, I shall feel to her for ever what I feel now. That feeling may be developed in ways which I do not expect; it may have provided for it forms of expression very different from any which are among the holiest sacraments of life: of that I take no care. The union I believe to be as eternal as my own soul. I have no rule to say in what other pairs of lovers it may or may not be eternal. I leave all in the hands of a good God; and can so far trust His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, as to be sure that He knew the best method of protesting against the old Jewish error (which Popish casuists still formally assert), that the first end of marriage is the procreation of children, and thereby laid the true foundation for the emancipation of woman. "Let neither Swedenborg nor any other man argue you out of the scientific canon, that to understand the spirit of Scripture or any other words you must first understand the letter. If the spirit is to be found anywhere, it is to be found by putting yourself in the place of the listeners, and seeing what the words would have meant to them. Then take that meaning as an instance (possibly a lower one) of an universal spiritual law, true for all men, and may God give you wisdom for the process of induction by which that law is to be discovered." 46 II. (The following letter was written some years before the above.) In heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God! And how are the angels of God in heaven? Is there no love among them? If the law which makes two beings unite themselves, and crave to unite themselves, in body, soul, and spirit, be the law of earth-of pure humanity; if, so far from being established by the Fall, this law has been the one from which the Fall has made mankind deflect most in every possible way; if the restoration of purity and the restoration of this law are synonymous; if love be of the Spirit-the vastest and simplest exercise of will of which we can conceive, then why should not this law hold in the spiritual world as well as in the natural? In heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but is not marriage the mere approximation to a unity which shall be perfect in heaven? Read what Milton says of angels' love in Books VI. and VII. and take comfort. What if many have been alone on earth? May they not find their kindred spirit in heaven, and be united to it by a tie still deeper than marriage? And shall we not be reunited in heaven by that still deeper tie? Surely on earth God has loved, Christ the Lord has loved,-some more than others; why should not we do the same in heaven, and yet love all? Here the natural body can but strive to express its love-its desire of union. Will not one of the properties of the spiritual body be, that it will be able to express that which the natural body only tries to express? Is this a sensual view of heaven? Then are the two last chapters of the Revelation most sensual. They tell not only of the perfection of humanity, with all its joys and wishes and properties, but of matter! They tell of trees and fruits and rivers, of gold and gems, and all beautiful and glorious material things. Isaiah tells of beasts and birds and little children in that new earth. Who shall say that the number of living beings is filled up? Why is heaven to be one vast lazy retrospect? Why is not eternity to have action and change, yet both, like God's, compatible with rest and immutability? This earth is but one minor planet of a minor system: are there no more worlds? Will there not be incident and action springing from these when the fate of this world is decided? Has the Evil Spirit touched this alone? Is it not self-conceit which makes us think the redemption of this earth the one event of eternity? The same feeling (sensuality, which is self-love) prompted men of old to fancy that this globe was the centre of the universe. These are matters too high for us, so we will leave them alone; but is flatly denying their existence and possibility leaving them alone? No it is intruding into them more conceitedly, insolently, and sensually than speculating on them by the carnal understanding like the Mystics, Platonics, and Gnostics. Calvin was a more conceited mystic than Henry More. It is more humble, more rational, to believe the possibility of all things, than to doubt the possibility of one thing. Reason is the deadly fire not only of mysticism and "And what if earthly love seems so delicious that all change in it would seem a change for the worse? Shall we repine? What does reason (and faith, which is reason exercised on the invisible) require of us but to conclude that, if there is change, there will be something better there? Here are two truths "1st, Body is that which expresses the spirit to which it is joined ; therefore, the more perfectly spiritual the body, the better it will express the spirit joined to it. What else is the meaning of while the love increases? "2nd, The expression of love produces happiness; therefore, the more perfect the expression, the greater the happiness. And, therefore, bliss greater than any we can know here awaits us in heaven. And does not the course of nature point to this? What else is the meaning of the gradual increase of love upon earth? old age when the bodily powers die ? What does that point to but to a restoration of the body, when mortality is swallowed up of life? Is not that mortality of the body sent us mercifully by God to teach us that our love is spiritual, and therefore will be able to express itself in any state of existence? to wean our hearts that we may learn to look for more perfect bliss in the perfect body? . . . Do not these thoughts take away from earthly bliss the poisoning thought, 'All this must end?' Ay, end! but only end so gradually that we shall not miss it, and the less perfect union on earth shall be replaced in heaven by perfect and spiritual bliss and union, inconceivable because perfect! "Do I undervalue earthly bliss? No! I enhance it when I make it the sacrament of a higher union! Will not these thoughts give more exquisite delight, will it not tear off the thorn from every rose and sweeten every nectar cup to perfect security of blessedness in this life, to feel that there is more in store for us, that all expressions of love here are but dim shadows of a union which shall be perfect if we will but work here so as to work out our salvation!" Correspondence. A SONG OF PRAISE TO THE TRIUNE GOD. A SMALL pamphlet, entitled "JESUS JEHOVAH, God manifest in the flesh; or Paradise Restored: A Poem in three parts; being a Para |