existence of matter may be assured he has no aptitude for metaphysical
inquiries." The most essential statement is this:--

"It is a sufficient account of that Appearance we call the World,
that God will teach a human mind, and so makes it the receiver of a
certain number of congruent sensations, which we call sun and moon,
man and woman, house and trade. In my utter impotence to test
the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the
impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what
difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in Heaven, or
some god paints the image in the firmament of the Soul?"

We need not follow the thought through the argument from illusions, like
that when we look at the shore from a moving ship, and others which
cheat the senses by false appearances.

The poet animates Nature with his own thoughts, perceives the affinities
between Nature and the soul, with Beauty as his main end. The
philosopher pursues Truth, but, "not less than the poet, postpones
the apparent order and relation of things to the empire of thought."
Religion and ethics agree with all lower culture in degrading Nature
and suggesting its dependence on Spirit. "The devotee flouts
Nature."--"Plotinus was ashamed of his body."--"Michael Angelo said of
external beauty, 'it is the frail and weary weed, in which God dresses
the soul, which He has called into time.'" Emerson would not
undervalue Nature as looked at through the senses and "the unrenewed
understanding." "I have no hostility to Nature," he says, "but a
child's love of it. I expand and live in the warm day like corn and
melons."--But, "seen in the light of thought, the world always is
phenomenal; and virtue subordinates it to the mind. Idealism sees the