"Then sang Israel this song:
Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it:
The well which the princes digged,
Which the nobles of the people delved,
With the sceptre and with their staves."

The deepening of the feeling came rapidly, and took exquisite
form in the prophet's assurance that his people should "draw
water out of the wells of salvation." But here mysticism was
beginning to blend with symbolism, and the later developments
of the idea pass over almost wholly into the sphere of reflective
analogy.

So far as the nature-mystic is concerned, he emphasises the
continuity of the feeling, from the earliest ages to the present,
that in the phenomena of water gushing from a source we have
a manifestation of self-activity, as immanent Idea and concrete
will. And convinced of the validity of his contention, he is not
surprised, as some may be, at the influence which wells and
springs have wielded, and still do wield, over the human soul.



CHAPTER XIX

BROOKS AND STREAMS

There is a striking passage in Tylor's "Primitive Culture" which
will admirably serve as an introduction to this chapter and the
one which is to follow, on "Rivers and Waterfalls." "In those