And with love enough, knowledge were useless. It comes in defect of love. Exhaustless in its sources, love supersedes knowledge, being the proper intellect of spirit and spring of intuition--G.o.d being very G.o.d, because his love absorbs all knowledge and contains his G.o.dhead. Knowing without loving is decease from love, and lapse from pure intellect into sense. Knowledge is not enough. The more knowledge, the deeper the depths left unsounded, the more exacting our faith in the certainty of knowing. Our faith feels after its objects, if haply by groping in the darkness of our ignorance we may fathom its depths, and find ourselves in Him who is ever seeking us. "Although no man knoweth the spirit of a man save The Spirit within him, yet is there something in him that not even man"s spirit knoweth."
"WHO placed thee here, did something then infuse Which now can tell thee news."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Small decoration of a flower and leaves]
III.
GENESIS.
"Had man withstood the trial, his descendants would have been born one from another in the same way that Adam--i. e., mankind--was, namely, in the image of G.o.d; for that which proceeds from the Eternal has eternal manner of birth."--BEHMEN.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative banner of a beetle among flowers and leaves]
GENESIS.
I.--VESTIGES.
Boehme, the subtilest thinker on Genesis since Moses, conceives that nature fell from its original oneness by fault of Lucifer before man rose physically from its ruins; and moreover, that his present existence, being the struggle to recover from nature"s lapse, is embarra.s.sed with double difficulties by defection from rect.i.tude on his part. We think it needs no Lucifer other than mankind collectively conspiring, to account for nature"s mishaps, or man"s, since, a.s.suming man to be nature"s ancestor, and nature man"s ruins rather, himself were the impediment he seeks to remove; nature being the child of his choices, corresponding in large--or macrocosmically--to his intents.
Eldest of creatures, the progenitor of all below him, personally one and imperishable in essence, if debased forms appear in nature, these are consequent on man"s degeneracy prior to their genesis. And it is only as he lapses out of his integrity, by debasing his essence, that he impairs his original likeness, and drags it into the p.r.o.ne shapes of the animal kingdom--these being the effigies and vestiges of his individualized and shattered personality. Behold these upstarts of his loins, everywhere the mimics jeering at him saucily, or gaily parodying their fallen lord.
"Most happy he who hath fit place a.s.signed To his beasts, and disafforested his mind; Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast, And is not ape himself to all the rest."
It is man alone who conceives and brings forth the beast in him that swerves and dies. Perversion of will by mis-choice precipitates him into serpentine form, duplicated in s.e.x,
"Parts of that Part which once was all."
"Tis but one and the same soul in him, entertaining a dialogue with himself, that is symbolized in the Serpent, Adam, and the woman; nor needs there fabulous "Paradises Lost or Regained," for setting in relief this serpent symbol of temptation, this Lord or Lucifer in our spiritual Eden:
"First state of human kind, Which one remains while man doth find Joy in his partner"s company; When two, alas! adulterate joined, The serpent made the three."
II.--SERPENT SYMBOL.
Better is he who is above temptation, than he who, being tempted, overcomes, since the latter but suppresses the evil inclination stirring in his breast which the former has not. Whoever is tempted has so far sinned as to entertain the tempting l.u.s.t within, betraying his lapse from singleness or holiness. The virtuous choose, are virtuous by choice; the holy, being one, deliberate not--their volitions answering spontaneously to their desires. It is the cleft personality, or _other_ within, which seduces the Will, and is the Adversary and Deuce we become individually, and impersonate in the Snake.
Chaste love"s a maid, Though shapen as a man.
But one were an OEdipus to expound this serpent mythology; whereby is symbolized the mysteries of genesis, and of The One rejoining man"s parted personality, and thus recreating mankind. Coeval with flesh, the symbol appears wherever traces of civilization exist; a remnant of it in the ancient Phallus worship having come to us disguised in our Mayday dance. Nor was it confined to carnal knowledge merely. The serpent symbolized divine wisdom, also; and it was under this acceptation that it became a.s.sociated with those "traditionary teachers of mankind whose genial wisdom ent.i.tled them to divine honors." An early Christian sect, called Ophites, worshipped it as the personation of natural knowledge.
So the injunction, "Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves,"
becomes the more significant when we learn that _seraph_ in the original means a serpent; _cherub_, a dove. And these again symbolize facts in osteological science as connected with the latest theories of the vertebrated cranium,[K] which view Nature as ophiomorphous--a series of spines, crowned, winged, webbed, finned, footed in structure--set erect, p.r.o.ne, trailing, as charged with life in higher potency or lower; man, holding the sceptre of dominion as he maintains his inborn rect.i.tude, or losing his prerogative as lapsed from his integrity--hereby debasing his form and parcelling his gifts away in the p.r.o.ne shapes distributed throughout nature"s kingdoms. Or, again as aspiring for lost supremacy, he uplift and crown his fallen form with forehead, countenance, speech,--thus liberating the genius from the slime of its p.r.o.ne periods, and restoring it to rect.i.tude, religion, science, fellowship, the ideal arts.
[Footnote K: "Spix, in his "Cephalogenesis," aids Oken"s theory of the spinal cranium in endowing the artist"s symbol of the cherub with all that it seemed to want before that discovery; namely: with a thorax, abdomen and pelvis, arms, legs, hands and feet."--OWEN.]
"Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man."
III.--EMBRYONS.
"The form is in the archetype before it appears in the work, in the divine mind before it exists in the creature."
As the male impregnates the female, so mind charges matter with form and fecundity; the spermatic world being life in transmission and body in embryo; the egg a genesis and seminary of forms, the kingdoms of animated nature sleeping coiled in its yolk, and awaiting the quickening magnetism that ushers them into light. Herein the human embryon unfolds in series the lineaments of all forms in the living hierarchy, to be fixed at last in its microcosm, unreeling therefrom its faculties into filamental organs, spinning so minutely the threads, "that were it physically possible to dissolve away all other members of the body, there would still remain the full and perfect figure of a man. And it is this perfect cerebro-spinal axis, this statue-like tissue of filaments, that, physically speaking, is the man."[L] The mind contains him spiritually, and reveals him physically to himself and his kind. Every creature a.s.sists in its own formation, souls being essentially creative and craving form.
[Footnote L: "Thou hast possessed my reins, thou hast covered me in my mother"s womb. My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in a secret place, and there curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth: there thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect: and in thy Book were all my members written, which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them."--PSALM cx.x.xix: 13, 15, 16.]
"The creature ever delights in the image of the Creator; And the soul of man will in a manner clasp G.o.d to herself; Having nothing mortal, she is wholly inebriated of G.o.d; For she glories in the harmony under which the human body exists."
Throughout the domain of spirit desire creates substance wherein all creatures seek conjunction, lodging and nurture. Nor is there anything in nature save desire holding substances together, all things being dissolvable and recombinable in this spiritual menstruum.
""Tis the blossom whence there blows Everything that lives and grows; It doth make the heavens to move And the sun to burn in love: The strong to weak it seeks to yoke, And makes the ivy climb the oak, Under whose shadows lions wild, Softened thereby grow tame and mild.
It all medicine doth appease, It burns the fishes in the seas, Not all the skill its wounds can stanch, Not all the sea its thirst can quench: It did make the b.l.o.o.d.y spear Once a leafy coat to wear, While in his leaves there shrouded lay Sweet birds for love that sing and play; And of all the joyful flame, Bud and blossom this we name."
IV.--TEMPERAMENT.
Temperament is a fate, oftentimes, from whose jurisdiction its victims hardly escape, but do its bidding herein, be it murder or martyrdom.
Virtues and crimes are mixed in one"s cup of nativity, with the lesser or larger margin of choice. Unless of chaste extraction, his regeneration shall be wrought with difficulty through the struggling kingdom of evil into the peaceful realm of good. Blood is a destiny.
One"s genius descends in the stream from long lines of ancestry, from fountains whence rose Adam the first and his Eve. The oldest and most persistent of forces, if once enn.o.bled by virtue and refined by culture, it resists base mixtures long, preserving its purity and power for generations. All gifts descend in the torrent; all are mingled in the ecstasy, as purity or pa.s.sion prevail; genius being the fruit of chaste conjunctions, brute force of adulterous--the virgin complexions or the mixed.[M]
[Footnote M: Boehme thus cla.s.sifies and describes the temperaments:
"Lapsing out of her innocency, man"s soul enters into a strange inn or lodging, wherein he is held sometime captive as in a dungeon, wherein are four chambers or stories, in one of which she is fated to remain, though not without instincts of the upper wards (if her place be the lowest) and hope of finding the keys by which she may ascend into these also. These chambers are the elements of his const.i.tution, and characterized as the four temperaments or complexions, namely:
I. The melancholic or earthy.
II. The phlegmatic oraqueous.
III. The choleric or fiery.
IV. The sanguine or ethereal.
I. The splenetic or melancholic partakes of the properties of the earth, being cold, dark, and hungry for the light. It is timid, incredulous, empty, consuming itself in corrosive cares, anxieties and sorrows, being sad when the sun shines, and needs perpetual encouragement. Its color is dark.
II. The phlegmatic being nourished from the earth"s moisture, is inclined to heaviness; is gross, effeminate, dull of apprehension, careless, indifferent. It has but faint glimpses of the light, and needs much inculcation from without. Its color is brown.
III. The choleric is of the fiery temper, inclined to violence, wrath, obstinacy, irreverence, ambition. It is impulsive, contentious, aspires for power, and authority. It is greedy of the sun, and glories in its blazing beams. Its color is florid.
IV. The sanguine, being tempered of ether, and the least imprisoned, is cheerful, gentle, genial, versatile, naturally chaste, insinuating, searching into the secret of things natural and spiritual, and capable of divining the deepest mysteries. It loves the light, and aspires toward the sun. Its complexion is fair."]
"Our generation moulds our state, Its virtues, vices, fix our fate; Nor otherwise experience proves, The unseen hands make all the moves, If some are great, and some are small, Some climb to good, some from good fortune fall,-- Not figures these of speech,--forefathers sway us all.
Me from the womb the midnight muse did take, She clothed me, nourished, and mine head With her own hands she fashioned; She did a cov"nant with me make, And circ.u.mcised my tender soul, and thus she spake: "Thou of my church shalt be, Hate and renounce (said she) Wealth, honour, pleasure, all the world for me.