SPIRIT IS NOT COGNISABLE BY SENSE.

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North. We believe, then, in a kind of being distinct from Matter, because we cannot help it. We have no other resource, and we choose to call it Spirit. That there is power, energy, will, pleasure, pain, thought, we know; and that is all that is necessary to the conception of Spirit, except one negation-that it is not cognisable to sense. All we have now to ask ourselves is, "Is this being, that feels, wills, thinks, cognisable by sense? If so, by what sense?" If there is no account to be given, that this thinking, willing, feeling being was ever taken cognisance of by sense, it seems at least a hard assertion to say it is so cognisable-an assertion at least as hazardous as to say it is not.

Shepherd. Ten thousand million times mair sae.

North. If you consider, then, my dearest Shepherd, what is our reasoning when we form to ourselves a belief of Spirit, it is simply this "Here is Matter which I know by my senses. There is nothing here which appears to me like what I know in myself. My senses, which take cognisance of Matter, show me nothing of the substance which thinks, or wills, or feels. I believe, then, that there is being, which they cannot show me, in which these powers reside. I believe that I am a spirit.” Shepherd.

North. From the moment the child is conscious of power within himself, of thought, sense, love, desire, pain, pleasure, will, he is beginning to gather together in one the impressions, feelings, and recollections which he will one day unite in conception under the name of Spirit.

Shepherd. Mysterious life o' weans!

North. Ah! that deep and infinite world, which is gradually opened up within ourselves, overshadowed as it is with the beautiful imagery of this material world, which it has received into itself and cherishes! Ah! this is the domain of Spirit. When our thoughts begin to kindle, when our heart dilates, the remembrances of the works of Spirit pour in upon us: let me rather say, my Shepherd, the Sun of Spirit rises in its strength, and consumes the mist, and we walk in the joy of his light, and exult in the genial warmth of his life-glorifying beams.

Shepherd. Simpler, simpler, simpler, sir.

North. Oral need not be so correct as written discourse.

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THE INFINITE AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE.

But I take the hint, and add, if it be asked why it is hard to us to form the conception, why we nourish it with difficulty, why our minds are so slow to reply when they are challenged to speak in this cause, it is because they are dull in their own self-consciousness.

Shepherd. That's a better style.

North. The Spirit, which feeds the body with life, itself languishes. It has not learnt to awaken and cherish its own fires. It is only when strong conception seizes upon its powers, and swells them into strength, that it truly knows, and vividly feels itself, and rejoices, like the morn, in its own lustre.

Shepherd. Eyeing the clouds as ornaments, and disposin them as fits its fancy in masses, or braids, or specks-a' alike beautifu'.

North. Illustrating the line in Wordsworth

"This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."

Shepherd. Weel, weel-aye quotin Wordsworth.

North. Oh the blind breasts of men! Because in the weakness of our nature we cannot rend ourselves enough from sense, we often seek to clothe the being of Spirit in the vain shadows of material form! But we must aspire to a constant conviction that at the verge and brink of this material nature in which we stand, there is an abyss of being, unfathomable to all our thoughts! Unknown existences incomprehensible of an infinite world! Of what mighty powers may dwell there what wonders may be there disclosed-what mutation and revolution of being or what depths of immutable repose, we know nothing. Shut up in our finite sense, we are severed for a while, on our spot of the universe, from those boundless immortalities. How near they may be to us we know not, or in what manner they may be connected with us-around us or within us! This vast expanse of worlds, stretching into our heavens many thousand times beyond the reach of our powerfulest sight-all this may be as a speck of darkness! Shepherd. I wuss Dr Chaumers heard ye, sir.

North. I wish he did. And may we, with our powers fed on Matter and drenched in Sense, think to solve the question of what being may be beyond? Take upon us impiously to judge whether there be a world unsearchable to us, or whether

A BELIEF IN THE SPIRITUAL

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this Matter on which we stand be all? And by the measure of our Sense circumscribe all the possibilities of creation, while we pretend to believe in the Almighty? If where we cannot know, we must yet needs choose our belief, oh! let us choose with better hope that belief which more humbles ourselves; and in bowed down and fearful awe, not in presumptuous intelligence, look forth from the stillness of our souls into the silence of unknown Being!

Shepherd. I may weel be mute, sir. Sit nearer me, sir, and gie me your haun-and lay't on my shouther, if you're no quite dune.

North. I would fain speak to the youth of my native land, James

Shepherd. And dinna they a' read the Noctes?

North.and ask them-when the kindling imagination blends itself with Intellectual Thought-when the awakened, ardent, aspiring intelligence begins in the joy of young desire to lift itself in high conception to the stately minds that have lived upon the earth-when it begins to feel the pride of hope and power, to glow with conscious energy, to create thoughts of its own of the destinies of that race to which it rejoices to belong-do not then, I ask them, all the words which the mighty of old have dropped from their kindling lips concerning the Emanation of the Eternal Mind, which dwells in a form of dust, fall like sparks, setting the hope of immortality in a blaze

"The sudden blaze

Far round illumines heaven?"

If, while engaged in the many speculations in which our studious youth have been involved, they suffer themselves to be dragged for a time from that primal belief, do they not find a weight of darkness and perplexity come over them, which they will strive in vain to shake off?-But as soon as they reawaken to the light of their first conviction, that heavy dream will be gone. "I can give no account"-such a one might say "nor record of this conviction. I drew it from no dictate of reason. But it has grown upon me through all the years of my existence. I cannot collect together the arguments on which I believe, but they are for ever rising round me anew, and in new power, every moment I draw my breath. At every step I take of inquiry into my own being, they burst

256

IS THE LIGHT OF LIFE AND OF SCIENCE.

upon me in different unexpected forms. If I have leaned to the side of the material philosophy, everything that I understood before was darkened-my clearest way was perplexed. I believed at first, because the desire of my soul cleaved to the thought of its lofty original. I believe now, because the doctrine is a light to me in the difficulties of science—a clue in labyrinths otherwise inextricable."

[Knocking at the front door and ringing of the front-door

bell, as if a section of guardians of the night were warning the family of fire, or a dozen devils, on their way back to Pandemonium, were wreaking their spite on Christopher's supposed slumbers.

Shepherd. Whattt ca' ye thattt?

North (musing). I should not wonder were that Tickler. Shepherd. Then he maun be in full tail as weel's figg, or else a Breearious. (Uproar rather increases.) They're surely usin sledge-hammers! or are they but ca'in awa wi' their cuddie-heels? We ocht to be gratefu', howsomever, that they've settled the bell. The wire-rope's brak.

1

North (gravely). I shall sue Southside for damages.
Shepherd. Think ye, sir, they'll burst the door?

North (smiling contemptuously). Not unless they have brought with them Mons Meg.2 But there is no occasion for the plural number-'tis that singular sinner Southside.

Shepherd. Your servants maun be the Seven Sleepers. North. They have orders never to be disturbed after midnight. (Enter PETER, in his shirt.)

Peter, let him in-show him ben-and (whispers PETER, who makes his exit and his entrance, ushering in TICKLER in a Dreadnought, covered with cranreuch.3 NORTH and the SHEPHERD are seen lying on their faces on the hearth-rug).

Peter. Oh! dear! oh! dear! oh! dear! what is this! what is this! what is this! Hae I leeved to see my maister and Mr Hogg lyin baith dead.

Tickler (in great agitation). Heavens! what has happened! This is indeed dreadful.

Peter. Oh! sir! oh! sir! it's that cursed charcoal that he

1 The iron arming on the heels of boots.

2 A piece of ordnance famous in Scottish history, and now placed on the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle.

3 Cranreuch-hoar-frost.

A WRESTLING-MATCH.

257

would use for a' I could do the effluvia has smothered him at last. There's the pan-there's the pan! But let's raise them up, and bear them into the back-green.

(PETER raises the body of NORTH in his arms-TICKLER that of the SHEPHERD.)

Stiff! stiff! stiff! cauld! cauld! cauld! deid! deid! deid! Tickler (wildly). When saw you them last?

Peter. Oh, sir, no for several hours! my beloved master sent me to bed at twelve-and now 'tis two half-past.

Tickler (dreadfully agitated). This is death.

Shepherd (seizing him suddenly round the waist). Then try Death a wrastle.

North (recuperated by the faithful PETER). Fair play, Hogg! You've hold of the waistband of his breeches. 'Tis a dog-fali, [The SHEPHERD and TICKLER contend fiercely on the rug. Tickler (uppermost). You deserve to be throttled, you swineherd, for having well-nigh broke my heart.

Shepherd. Pu' him aff, North-pu' him aff-or he'll thrapple Whr-whr-rrrr—whrrrr

me!

[SOUTHSIDE is choked off the SHEPHERD, and takes his seat on the sofa with tolerable composure. Exit PETER. Tickler. Bad taste-bad taste. Of all subjects for a practical joke the worst is death.

Shepherd. A gran' judge o' taste! Ca' you't gude taste to break folk's bell-ropes, and kick at folk's front doors, when a' the city's in sleep?

Tickler. I confess the propriety of my behaviour was problematical.

Shepherd. Problematical! You wad hae been cheap o't, if Mr North out o' the wundow had shot you deid on the spat.

North (leaning kindly over TICKLER, as SOUTHSIDE is sitting on the sofa, and insinuating his dexter hand into the left coatpocket of TIMOTHY's Dreadnought). Ha! ha! Look here, Mr Hogg! (Exhibits a bell-handle and brass knocker.) Street robbery?

Shepherd. Hamesucken !1

North. An accomplished Cracksman!

Tickler. I plead guilty.

Shepherd. Plead guilty! What brazen assurance! Caught

1 A Scottish law term, expressing assault and battery committed on a person in his own house.

VOL. IV.

R