The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [809]
normal, or well-regulated life. The earnest longing for artificial excitement, which, unhappily, has characterized too many eminent men, may thus be regarded as a psychal want, or necessity, — an effort to regain the lost, — a struggle of the soul to assume the position which, under other circumstances, would have been its due. The great variety of melodious expression which is given out from the keys of a piano, might be made, in proper hands, the basis of an excellent fairy-tale. Let the poet press his finger steadily upon each key, keeping it down, and Imagine each prolonged series of undulations the history, of joy or of sorrow, related by a good or evil spirit imprisoned within. There are some of the notes which almost tell, of their own accord, true and intelligible histories. A precise or clear man, in conversation or in composition, has a very important consequential advantage — more especially in matters of logic. As he proceeds with his argument, the person addressed, exactly comprehending, for that reason, and often for that reason only, agrees. Few minds, in fact, can immediately perceive the distinction between the comprehension of a proposition and an agreement of the reason with the thing proposed. Pleased at comprehending, we often are so excited as to take it for granted that we assent. Luminous writers may thus indulge, for a long time, in pure sophistry, without being detected. Macaulay is a remarkable instance of this species of mystification. We coincide with what he says, too frequently, because we so very distinctly understand what it is that he intends to say. His essay on Bacon has been long and deservedly admired; but its concluding portions (wherein he endeavors to depreciate the Novam Organum,) although logical to a fault, are irrational in the extreme. But not to confine myself to mere assertion. Let us refer to this great essayist's review of Ranke's "History of the Popes." His strength is here put forth to account for the progress of Romanism, by maintaining that divinity is not a progressive science. "The enigmas," says he, in substance, "which perplex the natural theologian, are the same in all ages, while the Bible, where alone we are to seek revealed truth, has been always what it is. "Here Mr. Macaulay confounds the nature of that proof from which we reason of the concerns of earth, considered as man's habitation, with the nature of that evidence from which we reason of the same earth, regarded as a unit of the universe. In the former case, the data being palpable, the proof is direct; in the latter it is purely analogical. Were the indications we derive from science, of the nature and designs of Deity, and thence, by inference, of man's destiny, — were these indications proof direct, it is then very true that no advance in science could strengthen them; for, as the essayist justly observes, " nothing can be added to the force of the argument which the mind finds in every beast, bird, and flower; " but, since these indications are rigidly analogical, every step in human knowledge, every astronomical discovery, in especial, throws additional light upon the august subject, by extending the range of analogy. That we know no more, to-day, of the nature of Deity, of its purposes, and thus of man himself, than we did even a dozen years ago, is a proposition disgracefully absurd. "If Natural Philosophy," says a greater than Macaulay, " should continue to be improved in its various branches, the bounds of moral philosophy would be enlarged also." These words of the prophetic Newton are felt to be true, and will be fulfilled.
A CHAPTER ON FIELD SPORTS AND MANLY PASTIMES
(PART I)
BY AN EXPERIENCED PRACTITIONER.
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GYMNASTICS AND GYMNASIA.
[[This paragraph is taken directly from American Journal of Education, 1826, 1:502:]]
IT may be truly said, that the revival of Gymnastics, so long buried under the ruins of antiquity is one of the greatest advancements yet made in the science of education, and not among the least conspicuous improvements of the present enlightened age. Every