"There are many things, which, having no corporeal¹ evidence, can be perceived and comprehended only by the discursive³ energies of reason. Hence the ambiguous nature of matter can be comprehended only by adulterated opinion. Matter is the principle of all bodies, and is stamped with the impression of forms. Fire, air, and water derive⁴ their origin and principle from the scalene triangle. But the earth was created from right-angled triangles, of which two of the sides are equal. The sphere and the pyramid contain in themselves the figure of fire; but the octaedron was destined⁵ to be the figure of air, and the icosaedron of water. The right-angled isosceles triangle produces from itself a square, andthe square generates from itself the cube, which is the figure peculiar⁶ to earth. But the figure of a beautiful and perfect sphere was imparted to the most beautiful and perfect world, that it might be indigent⁷ of nothing, but contain all things, embracing and comprehending them in itself, and thus might be excellent and admirable, similar to and in concord⁸ with itself, ever moving musically and melodiously⁹. If I use a novel language, excuse me. As Apuleius says, pardon must be granted to novelty of words, when it serves to illustrate¹⁰ the obscurity of things."  
These words came from the lips of the lion-like philosopher, who has been noticed before in these pages. He was sitting with Flemming, smoking a long pipe. As the Baron¹¹ said, he was indeed a strange owl¹²; for the owl is a grave bird; a monk¹³, who chants midnight mass in the great temple of Nature;--an anchorite,--a pillar saint,--the very Simeon Stylites of his neighbourhood. Such, likewise, was the philosophical¹⁵ Professor. Solitary¹⁶, but with a mighty¹⁷ current, flowed the river of his life, like the Nile, without a tributary¹⁸ stream, and making fertile only a single strip in the vast desert. His temperament¹⁹ had been in youth a joyous²⁰ one; and now, amid all his sorrows and privations, for he had many, he looked upon the world as a glad, bright, glorious world. On the many joys of life he gazed still with the eyes of childhood, from the far-gone Past upward, trusting, hoping;--and upon its sorrows with the eyes of age, from the distant Future, downward, triumphant²¹, not despairing. He loved solitude²², and silence, and candle-light, and the deep midnight. "For," said he, "if the morning hours are the wings of the day, I only fold them about me to sleep more sweetly; knowing that, at its other extremity²³, the day, like the fowls²⁴ of the air, has an epicurean morsel,--a parson's nose; and on this oily midnight my spirit revels²⁵ and is glad."
 
Such was the Professor, who had been talking in a half-intelligible strain for two hours or more. The Baron had fallen fast asleep in his chair; but Flemming sat listening with excited imagination, and the Professor continued in the following words, which, to the best of his listener's memory, seemed gleaned²⁶ here and there from Fichte's Destiny of Man, and Shubert's History of the Soul.
 
"Life is one, and universal; its forms many and individual. Throughout this beautiful and wonderful creation there is never-ceasing motion, without rest by night or day, ever weaving to and fro. Swifter than a weaver's shuttle it flies from Birth to Death, from Death to Birth; from the beginning seeks the end, and finds it not, for the seeming end is only a dim beginning of a new out-going and endeavour after the end. As the ice upon the mountain, when the warm breath of the summer sun breathes upon it, melts, and divides into drops, each of which reflects an image of the sun; so life, in the smile of God's love, divides itself into separate forms, each bearing in it and reflecting an image of God's love. Of all these forms the highest and most perfect inits god-likeness²⁷ is the human soul. The vast cathedral of Nature is full of holy scriptures²⁹, and shapes of deep, mysterious meaning; but all is solitary and silent there; no bending knee, no uplifted eye, no lip adoring, praying. Into this vast cathedral comes the human soul, seeking its Creator; and the universal silence is changed to sound, and the sound is harmonious³⁰, and has a meaning, and is comprehended and felt. It was an ancient saying of the Persians, that the waters rush from the mountains and hurry forth³¹ into all the lands to find the Lord of the Earth; and the flame of the Fire, when it awakes, gazes no more upon the ground, but mounts heavenward to seek the Lord of Heaven; and here and there the Earth has built the great watch-towers of the mountains, and they lift their heads far up into the sky, and gaze ever upward and around, to see if the Judge of the World comes not! Thus in Nature herself, without man, there lies a waiting, and hoping, a looking and yearning³², after an unknown somewhat. Yes; when, above there, where the mountain lifts its head over all others, that it may be alone with the clouds and storms of heaven, the lonely eagle looks forth into the gray dawn, to see if the day comes not! when, by the mountain torrent³³, the brooding raven³⁴ listens to hear if the chamois is returning from his nightly pasture in the valley; and when the soon uprising sun calls out the spicy³⁵ odors of the thousand flowers, the Alpine³⁶ flowers, with heaven's deep blue and the blush of sunset on their leaves;--then there awakes in Nature, and the soul of man can see and comprehend it, an expectation and a longing³⁷ for a future revelation of God's majesty³⁸. It awakens³⁹, also, when in the fulness of life, field and forest rest at noon, and through the stillness is heard only the song of the grasshopper⁴⁰ and the hum of the bee; and when at evening the singing lark⁴¹, up from the sweet-smelling vineyards rises, or in the later hours of night Orion puts on his shining armour⁴², to walk forth in the fields of heaven. But in the soul of man alone is this longing changed to certainty and fulfilled. For lo! thelight of the sun and the stars shines through the air, and is nowhere visible and seen; the planets hasten with more than the speed of the storm through infinite space, and their footsteps are not heard, but where the sunlight strikes the firm surface of the planets, where the stormwind smites⁴³ the wall of the mountain cliff, there is the one seen and the other heard. Thus is the glory of God made visible, and may be seen, where in the soul of man it meets its likeness changeless and firm-standing. Thus, then, stands Man;--a mountain on the boundary between two worlds;--its foot in one, its summit far-rising into the other. From this summit the manifold landscape of life is visible, the way of the Past and Perishable⁴⁴, which we have left behind us; and, as we evermore ascend⁴⁵, bright glimpses of the daybreak of Eternity⁴⁶ beyond us!"
 
Flemming would fain have interrupted this discourse⁴⁷ at times, to answer and inquire, but the Professor went on, warming and glowing more andmore. At length, there was a short pause, and Flemming said;
 
"All these indefinite longings,--these yearnings after an unknown somewhat, I have felt and still feel within me; but not yet their fulfilment."
 
"That is because you have not faith;" answered the Professor. "The Present is an age of doubt and disbelief, and darkness; out of which shall arise a clear and bright Hereafter. In the second part of Goethe's Faust, there is a grand and striking scene, where in the classical Walpurgis Night, on the Pharsalian Plains, the mocking Mephistopheles sits down between the solemn antique Sphinxes, and boldly questions them, and reads their riddles⁴⁸. The red light of innumerable watch-fires glares all round about, and shines upon the terrible face of the arch-scoffer; while on either side, severe, majestic⁴⁹, solemnly serene⁵⁰, we behold⁵¹ the gigantic forms of the children of Chimæra, half buried in the earth, their mild eyes gazing fixedly⁵³, as if they heard through the midnight, the swift-rushing wings of the Stymphalides, striving to outstrip⁵⁴ the speed of Alcides' arrows! Angry griffins are near them; and not far are Sirens, singing their wondrous⁵⁵ songs from the rocking branches of the willow⁵⁶ trees! Even thus does a scoffing⁵⁷ and unbelieving Present sit down, between an unknown Future and a too believing Past, and question and challenge the gigantic forms of faith, half buried in the sands of Time, and gazing forward steadfastly⁵⁸ into the night, whilst sounds of anger and voices of delight alternate vex⁵⁹ and soothe⁶⁰ the ear of man!--But the time will come, when the soul of man shall return again childlike and trustful to its faith in God; and look God in the face and die; for it is an old saying, full of deep, mysterious meaning, that he must die, who hath looked upon a God. And this is the fate of the soul, that it should die continually. No sooner here on earth does it awake to its peculiar being, than it struggles to behold and comprehend the Spirit of Life. In the first dim twilight⁶¹ of its existence, it beholds⁶² this spirit, is pervaded⁶³ by its energies,--is quick and creative likethe spirit itself, and yet slumbers⁶⁴ away into death after having seen it. But the image it has seen, remains⁶⁵, in the eternal procreation, as a homogeneal existence, is again renewed, and the seeming death, from moment to moment, becomes the source of kind after kind of existences in ever-ascending series. The soul aspires⁶⁶ ever onward⁶⁷ to love and to behold. It sees the image more perfect in the brightening twilight of the dawn, in the ever higher-rising sun. It sleeps again, dying in the clearer vision; but the image seen remains as a permanent kind; and the slumberer⁶⁸ awakes anew and ever higher after its own image, till at length, in the full blaze of noonday, a being comes forth, which, like the eagle, can behold the sun and die not. Then both live on, even when this bodily element, the mist and vapor⁶⁹ through which the young eagle gazed, dissolves and falls to earth."
 
"I am not sure that I understand you," said Flemming; "but if I do, you mean to say, that, as the body continually changes and takes unto itselfnew properties, and is not the same to-day as yesterday, so likewise the soul lays aside its idiosyncrasies, and is changed by acquiring new powers, and thus may be said to die. And hence, properly speaking, the soul lives always in the Present, and has, and can have, no Future; for the Future becomes the Present, and the soul that then lives in me is a higher and more perfect soul; and so onward forevermore."
 
"I mean what I say," continued the Professor; "and can find no more appropriate language to express my meaning than that which I have used. But as I said before, pardon must be granted to the novelty of words, when it serves to illustrate the obscurity of things. And I think you will see clearly from what I have said, that this earthly life, when............