Hence we have, added to the creations and doings of the divine mind, as such, the special creations, perceivings, and doings of the finite soul, as such; and in true statement, the universe is the thought of God, the uncreated thinker, plus the thought of all finite created thinkers; for the animal kingdom is to be included, down to the last point where a self-directing cause appears in action under a special consciousness, however limited; where conscious mind passes into mere unconscious instinctive function, existing and being moved under the divine consciousness alone; where, as Bacon expresses it, "art or man is added to the universe"; and "it must almost necessarily be concluded," he continues, "that the human soul is endued with providence, not without the example, intention, and authority of the greater providence." This art has as wide a range in nature as the special creator: in man, it becomes a kind of lesser providence. "Man, too," says another philosopher, "creates and conquers kingdoms from the barren realms of Darkness, to increase the happiness, and dignity, and power of all men." 2 All art is creation, as Plato said: "For that which is the cause of anything coming out of non-existence into existence is altogether a creation. So that all the operations effected by all the arts are creations ; and all the makers of them are creators, . are poets (ποιηταί.)" 8 It This art may begin in a microscopic animalcule, or if not there, in the least ganglioned structure in which the eye of science can detect a self-acting and self-directing cause. may live the life of an encrinite, and find its whole scope of activity in a stony cup. It may rule on the bosom of a swarm of organic instincts in the bee. It may have the eyes, fins, ink-bag, and hydraulic apparatus of the cuttlefish, and swim the ocean, being to some extent its own 1 De Sap. Vet., Works (Boston), XIII. 44. 2 Carlyle's Life of Schiller, 239. 8 Banquet, Works (Bohn), III. 539. pilot and protector; or it may have a higher organization, a greater amount of power, and a greater range of thinking faculty, in the fish, reptile, bird, mammal, ape, or oldest Tertiary, or Quaternary, inventor of the flint axe, or earliest Papuan, Negro, or Titicacan, even up to the highest intelligence, widest range of liberty, and largest amount of power of thought and action in the latest and best Caucasian man; and, in each degree of the great scale of being, have its own appropriate share in the management of its own affairs, and, in some sort, the affairs of the universe; acting so far on its own responsibility, and helping, or as it may be, not helping, God create a world of order, art, excellence, and beauty. So, from the beginning, man has been a creator, according to his ability, of stone axe, bronze axe, iron axe; bow and arrow, canoe, and skin-tent; hut, plough, and shop; picture-writing, hieroglyphics, alphabets ; house, temple, and city; civil polity, sacred scripture, and jurisprudence; poetry, history, literature; science, arts, commerce; philosophy and religious culture; and the sum total of human civilization on this globe; for all is the work of his art, invention, and industry, and a creation of his thought. There is no end to his creative function; and his highest happiness, and his greatest good, is in being a creator. Carlyle agrees with the old monks, that "work is worship;" and, certainly, Plato was not far from the same teaching, when he said: "But I will lay this down, that the things which are said to be made by nature, are (made) by divine art; but that the things, which are composed from these by men, are produced by human art; and that according to this assertion, there are two kinds of the making art, one human, and the other divine." 1 Bacon appears to have entertained the same opinion; and carrying this philosophy of art into his own studies of nature, he concludes, after much consideration, “to assign the Natural History of Arts as a branch of Natural History, 1 Sophist, Works (Bohn), III. 180. وو because an opinion hath a long time gone current as if art were some different thing from nature, and artificial from nat ural." "1 But he has ascertained that "nature is either free, unfolding itself in its own accustomed course as in the heavens, in animals and plants, and in the whole apparatus of the universe; or, by the perverse and intractable qualities of matter and the violence of impediments, it is detruded from its own proper state, as in monstrosities; or, again, it is constrained, fashioned, and, as it were, made anew, by the art and work of man, as in artificial productions"; that these, again, differ from the natural, not in "the form and essence of the thing itself, but only in respect of "the efficient cause," or the "restrained means "; that man has no power over the nature of things, beyond a power of moving, so as to apply, or remove, natural bodies; and therefore, when natural bodies are applied, or removed, conjoining (as they say) the active with the passive, man can do everything: where this is not granted, nothing. Nor does it matter, if things are placed in order for a certain effect, whether it be done by man or without man." And so we see, that " while Nature governs all, these three things are in subordination, the course of Nature, the deviation of Nature, and art or man added to things." So far the De Augmentis; and in the Advancement, he lays down, also, that "it is the duty of art to perfect and exalt nature": 66 so, o'er that art, Which, you say, adds to Nature, is an art That Nature makes." Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. 3. As we learn from the Wisdom of the Ancients, the story of Atalanta was "an excellent allegory, relating to the contest of Art and Nature; for Art, which is meant by Atalanta, is in itself, if nothing stand in the way, far swifter than Nature, and as we may say, the better runner, and comes sooner to the goal. For this may be seen in almost 1 De Aug. Scient., II. c. 2. everything; you see, that fruit grows slowly from the kernel, swiftly from the graft: " "You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock"; but, "it is no wonder if Art cannot outstrip Nature, but according to the agreement and condition of the contest, put her to death or destroy her; but, on the contrary, Art remains subject to Nature as the wife is subject to the husband." And, with but a slight change of the word outstrip for outwent, we may discover the same idea in these lines of the "Cymbeline": "Iach. The chimney Is south the chamber; and the chimney-piece, Motion and breath left out."— Act II. Sc. 4. Darwin, prying into this subject from a merely geological point of view, and with the help of all that science had done for him since Bacon's time, discovers only that, by a certain kind of manipulation and tampering, he can produce all manner of domestic breeds and varieties, and, in short, almost, if not quite, an actual difference of species: whence he concludes, that what creates a difference of species in nature is, not any art in nature, but a certain blind mani-、 pulation of mere circumstances and conditions, — variation, divergence, inheritance, natural selection, struggle for life, and the like, on a basis of dead substratum and the properties thereof, "laws acting "1 included; as if, these being given, an animal could create himself as easily as wink. It seems never to have occurred to him, that any efficient and essential cause, or creative power, was at all necessary in the business; much less, that he should undertake to inquire what that cause is, or the nature of it, though so plainly in action there under his very eyes. Much 1 Darwin's Origin of Species (New York, 1860), 424. better and decidedly more Baconian, is the philosophy of the poet, Cowper: "But how should matter occupy a charge, Dull as it is, and satisfy a law So vast in its demands, unless impell'd Whose cause is God.". Task, Book VI. Darwin reasons thus: A species can be made to vary: therefore species is not immutable. Good. But Agassiz will not agree that Mr. Darwin can manipulate a new species into being; but only a transient variety, though presenting differences as wide as a difference of species, not a permanent species in nature; and he thinks the logic should run thus: Man manipulates a temporary variety into being; ergo, God created the permanent species. Good, again. But what if the temporary variety should continue permanent for a thousand years? or what if the permanent species should actually continue to change through the next geological period? According to Bacon, this art of manipulation, or placing things in order for a certain effect, whether by man, or without man, is not, after all, anything different from nature, nor artificial from natural, in respect of the form and essence of the thing: the art itself is in the "order, operation, and Mind of Nature." Man, with his manipulation, can only help a little. Now, in the year 1611, we find Sir Francis Bacon in full possession of Gorhambury and the beautiful gardens there, always a student and lover of Nature and a curious observer of her ways, in gardens or elsewhere, now diligently experimenting upon the natures of plants, flowers, and fruits, marshalling in their proper seasons rosemary and rue, primrose, violets, cowslips, hyssop and germander, — "Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ; The marigold, that goes to bed with th' sun, |