al; so that there is sympathy and communication between one part
and the other; in the smallest part may be the subtlest nerve. And hence
the universal magnetism of Nature. But man contemplates the universe as
an animalcule would an elephant. The animalcule, seeing scarcely the tip
of the hoof, would be incapable of comprehending that the trunk belonged
to the same creature,--that the effect produced upon one extremity would
be felt in an instant by the other.) Centuries passed, and lives were
wasted in these discoveries; but step after step was chronicled and
marked, and became the guide to the few who alone had the hereditary
privilege to track their path.

"At last from this dimness upon some eyes the light broke; but think not,
young visionary, that to those who nursed unholy thoughts, over whom
the Origin of Evil held a sway, that dawning was vouchsafed. It could
be given then, as now, only to the purest ecstasies of imagination and
intellect, undistracted by the cares of a vulgar life, or the appetites
of the common clay. Far from descending to the assistance of a fiend,
theirs was but the august ambition to approach nearer to the Fount
of Good; the more they emancipated themselves from this limbo of the
planets, the more they were penetrated by the splendour and beneficence
of God. And if they sought, and at last discovered, how to the eye of
the Spirit all the subtler modifications of being and of matter might be
made apparent; if they discovered how, for the wings of the Spirit, all
space might be annihilated, and while the body stood heavy and solid
here, as a deserted tomb, the freed IDEA might wander from star to
star,--if such discoveries became in truth their own, the sublimest
luxury of their knowledge was but this, to wonder, to venerate, and
adore! For, as one not unlearned in these high matters has expressed it,
'There is a principle of the soul superior to all external nature,
and through this principle we are capable of surpassing the order and
systems of the world, and participating the immortal life and the energy
of the Sublime Celestials. When the soul is elevated to natures above
itself, it deserts the order to which it is awhile compelled, and by a
religious magnetism is attracted to another and a loftier, with which it
blends and mingles.' (From Iamblichus, "On the Mysteries," c. 7, sect.
7.) Grant, then, that such beings found at last the secret to arrest
death; to fascinate danger and the foe