ut its powers are impaired
in proportion to their exposure to human passion.

VIOLA:--Human INSTINCT. (Hardly worthy to be called LOVE, as Love would
not forsake its object at the bidding of Superstition.) Resorts, first
in its aspiration after the Ideal, to tinsel shows; then relinquishes
these for a higher love; but is still, from the conditions of its
nature, inadequate to this, and liable to suspicion and mistrust. Its
greatest force (Maternal Instinct) has power to penetrate some secrets,
to trace some movements of the Ideal, but, too feeble to command them,
yields to Superstition, sees sin where there is none, while committing
sin, under a false guidance; weakly seeking refuge amidst the very
tumults of the warring passions of the Actual, while deserting the
serene Ideal,--pining, nevertheless, in the absence of the Ideal, and
expiring (not perishing, but becoming transmuted) in the aspiration
after having the laws of the two natures reconciled.

(It might best suit popular apprehension to call these three the
Understanding, the Imagination, and the Heart.)

CHILD:--NEW-BORN INSTINCT, while trained and informed by Idealism,
promises a preter-human result by its early, incommunicable vigilance
and intelligence, but is compelled, by inevitable orphanhood, and
the one-half of the laws of its existence, to lapse into ordinary
conditions.

AIDON-AI:--FAITH, which manifests its splendour, and delivers its
oracles, and imparts its marvels, only to the higher moods of the soul,
and whose directed antagonism is with Fear; so that those who employ
the resources of Fear must dispense with those of Faith. Yet aspiration
holds open a way of restoration, and may summon Faith, even when the cry
issues from beneath the yoke of fear.

DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD:--FEAR (or HORROR), from whose ghastliness men
are protected by the opacity of the region of Prescription and Custom.
The moment this protection is relinquished, and the human spirit pierces
the cloud, and enters alone on the unexplored regions of Nature, this
Natural Horror haunts it, and is to be successfully encountered only
by defiance,--by aspiration towards, and reliance on, the Former and
Director of Nature, whose Messenger and Instrument of reassurance is
Faith.

MERVALE:--CONVENTIONALISM.

NICOT:--Base, grovelling, malignant PASSION.

GLYNDON:--UNSUSTAINED ASPIRATION: Would follow Instinct, but is
deterred by Conventionalism, is overawed by Idealism, yet at