is given to elucidating the symbolical meaning of myths, and in his essay, Of Isis and Osiris, busies himself in unfolding the philosophical import of the rites of the ancient Egyptians. In doing so he justifies himself by an appeal to the method of the Pythagoreans. "If, therefore," he urges, "the most approved of the philosophers did not think meet to pass over or disesteem any significant symbol of the Divinity which they observed even in things that had neither soul nor body, I believe they regarded yet more those properties of government and conduct which they saw in such natures as had sense, and were endued with soul, with passion, and with moral temper. We are not, therefore, to content ourselves with worshipping these things, but we must worship God through them-as being the more clear mirrors of him, and produced by Nature-so as ever worthily to conceive of them as instruments or artifices of that God which orders all things." 1

So, too, do Emerson and the Platonists agree in the most universal form of statement —namely, that nature is the symbol of spirit. In the Timæus of Plato the Creator is repre

1 Morals, IV., 134.

sented as fabricating the world after an eternal, intelligible pattern of which this world becomes an image. "To discover, then, the Creator and Father of this universe," says the Timæus, "as well as his work, is indeed difficult; and when discovered, it is impossible to reveal him to mankind at large. And this, too, we must consider respecting him, according to which of two patterns he modelled the world; whether with reference to one subsisting ever in a state of sameness and similarly affected, or with reference to one that is only generated. If this world then is beautiful and its artificer good, he evidently looked to an eternal pattern, but if it be without beauty, and what it is not lawful to mention, he must have looked to one that is generated. It is evident, however, to everyone that he looked to one that was eternal; for the universe is the most beautiful of generated things, and its artificer the best of causes. Being thus generated, then, it has been framed according to principles that can be comprehended by reason and reflection, and ever abides in sameness of being." 1 Stated in the language of Emerson this idea

1 Bohn translation, II., 332-333.

1

underlies the third proposition of his symbolical teaching, namely, that nature is a symbol of spirit.

Thus far the universe has been viewed as it is seen manifested in space, or in its material phase; but Plato's speculation attended to it as it appears under the aspect of time. And just as the substance of the world has a spiritual counterpart, so the world in time is related to a spiritual reality, called eternity. Thus Plato speaks of the world: "When the parent Creator perceived that this created image of the eternal gods had life and motion, he was delighted with his work, and by this very delight he was led to consider how he might make it still more to resemble its exemplar. Hence, as the intelligible universe was an eternal animal, he tried to make this [the sensible universe], as far as he could, similarly perfect. The nature indeed of the animal itself was eternal, and this nature could not be entirely adopted into anything subject to generation; hence God resolved to form a certain movable image of eternity; and thus, while he was disposing the parts of the universe, he, out of that eternity which rests in unity, formed an eternal image on the

principle of numbers; and to this we give the appellation of Time." 1

This conception of time as the image of eternity Emerson lays down as the fundamental one in his Lecture on the Times. "The Times, as we say-or the present aspects of our social state, the Laws, Divinity, Natural Science, Agriculture, Art, Trade, Letters, have their root in an invisible spiritual reality. To appear in these aspects, they must first exist, or have some necessary foundation. Beside all the small reasons we assign, there is a great reason for the existence of every extant fact; a reason which lies grand and immovable, often unsuspected, behind it in silence. The Times are the masquerade of the Eternities; trivial to the dull, tokens of noble and majestic agents to the wise; the receptacle in which the Past leaves its history; the quarry out of which the genius of to-day is building up the Future." 2

Symbolism is an attempt to express the spiritual meaning of the world, to see in it a reflection of spiritual reality. It is a theory that appeals to the feeling for art, since the

1 The Timaus, Bohn translation, II., 340–341. 2 Complete Works, I., 259.

world of things according to its teaching becomes an imitation of a spiritual world of pure intelligence. In Emerson's hands the theory assumes a literary value; and thus the end which nature serves when viewed symbolically is called by him language. The final use which he makes of the theory does not appear in his Nature; there the theory is merely a stage through which he passes in his interpretation of the meaning of the universe. Later the same theory will reappear in his conception of art.

A second theory of the meaning of nature is based upon the relation of the world of matter to the world of mind. This relation underlies symbolism; but in the new statement which Emerson makes the terms are changed. Nature is conceived as an orderly system of laws executing themselves and mind is viewed as an invisible world in which ideas are the final realities. By correlating these two terms, the laws of nature and the ideas of the mind, Emerson gets his new theory. "The uneasiness which the thought of our helplessness in the chain of causes occasions us," he writes, "results from looking too much at one condition of nature, namely, Motion. But the drag is never taken from the wheel.