University of Virginia Library

21. SPIRIT AND MATTER.

A REVERIE.

J. R. Lowell.

One of the most wonderful things connected
with the mysterious soul-power, with which we
limited mortals are endowed, is the capacity to rise
into the infinite from the smallest earth-particle of
the finite. How often some circumstance, trifling
as the motions of a butterly, plunges us into a profound
reverie! How often, from the smallest and
lowliest germ, are thoughts evolved, which go revolving
round in ascending circles, forming a spiral
ladder, ascending from earth to heaven!

A pair of white-breasted swallows that built a
nest in a little bird-box near my chamber-window,
sent my soul floating dreamily upward, till it lost
its way in wide ethereal regions. The mother-bird
was a lively little thing, making a deal of musical

twittering at her work, and often coquetting gracefully
with her mate. I took an affectionate interest
in her proceedings, though I had private suspicious
that she was something of a female gossip, in her
small way; for I observed that she watched the
motions of other birds with inquisitive curiosity,
and often stood at her front-door, prattling with
them as they passed by. But they seemed to take
it all in good part, and it was no concern of mine.
I loved the pretty little creature, gossip or no gossip;
and, for many days, my first waking thought
was to jump up and take a peep at her. Though
I rose before the sun, I always found her awake
and active, chattering with her mate, or carrying
straws and feathers into her dwelling, to make a
bed for their little ones. I should have been half
ashamed to have had any very wise person overhear
the things I said to her. She had such
“peert,” knowing ways, that I could not remember
her inability to understand human speech. It
always seemed to me that she must be aware of my
sympathy, and that she rejoiced in it.

One bright morning, when I looked out to salute
her as usual, I was filled with dismay to see a grisly
cat seated on the bird-box, peeping into the door
with eager eyes. She had descended from the roof,
and was watching for a chance to devour the inmates
of that happy little dwelling. I always had
an antipathy to the stealthy and cruel habits of the
feline race; but I think I never detested any creature

as I did that cat, for a few minutes. The wish
to do her harm, was, however, easily conquered by
the reflection that she was obeying a natural instinct,
as the bird was in catching insects; but I
resolved that neither my dear little Lady Swallow
nor her babes should furnish a repast for her voracious
jaws. So I climbed a ladder, and took down the
box, which contained a nest, with two pretty little
white eggs. I was distressed with the idea that the
hateful cat might have destroyed my favourites before
I perceived their danger; but my anxiety was
soon relieved by their approach. They circled
round and round the well-known spot, peered
about in every direction, perched on the platform
where their home had stood, and chattered together
with unusual volubility. Again and again they
returned, bringing other birds with them, and repeating
the same motions. They were evidently
as much astonished, as we should be to wake up
in the morning and find that an earthquake had
swallowed a neighbour's house during the night.
Whether there were scientific swallows among them,
that tried to frame satisfactory theories in explanation
of the phenomenon, or whether any feathered
clericals taught them to submit to the event as a
special providence, we can never know. The natural
presumption is, that they will always wonder,
to the end of their days, what mysterious agency
it could have been that so suddenly removed their
nest, house and all. As for conjecturing why it
was done, the mere query was probably beyond
the range of their mental powers.

I was watching them all the time, but their bird
eyes could not see me, and their bird-nerves conveyed
no magnetic intimation of my close vicinity.
Their surprise and their trouble were partially revealed
to me by their motions and their utterance;
but, though they were intelligent swallows, they
could form no idea of such a fact. I had removed
their dwelling to save their lives; but between
their plane of existence and my own there was
such an impassable chasm, that no explanation of
my kindness and foresight could possibly be conveyed
to them.

I thought of all this, and longed in vain to enlighten
their ignorance, and relieve their perplexity.
The earnestness of my wish, and the impossibility
of accomplishing it, suggested a train of thought.
I said to myself, perhaps some invisible beings are
now observing me, as I am observing these swallows;
but I cannot perceive them, because the laws
of their existence are too far removed from my own.
Perhaps they take a friendly interest in my affairs,
and would gladly communicate with me, if I were
so constituted that I could understand their ideas,
or their mode of utterance. These cogitations recalled
to my mind some remarks by the old English
writer, Soame Jenyns. In his “Disquisition on the
Chain of Universal Being,” he says: “The superiority
of man to that of other terrestial animals is

as inconsiderable, in proportion to the immense
plan of universal existence, as the difference of
climate between the north and south end of the
paper I now write upon, with regard to the heat
and distance of the sun. There is nothing leads us
into so many errors concerning the works and designs
of Providence, as the foolish vanity that can
persuade such insignificant creatures that all things
were made for their service; from whence they
ridiculously set up utility to themselves as the standard
of good, and conclude every thing to be evil,
which appears injurious to them or their purposes.
As well might a nest of ants imagine this globe of
earth created only for them to cast up into hillocks,
and clothed with grain and herbage for their sustenance;
then accuse their Creator for permitting
spades to destroy them, and ploughs to lay waste
their habitations. They feel the inconveniences,
but are utterly unable to comprehend their uses, as
well as the relations they themselves bear to superior
beings.

“When philosophers have seen that the happiness
of inferior creatures is dependent on our wills, it is
surprising none of them should have concluded
that the good order and well-being of the universe
might require that our happiness should be as dependent
on the wills of superior beings, who are
accountable, like ourselves, to one common Lord
and Father of all things. This is the more wonderful,
because the existence and influence of such

beings has been an article in the creed of all religions
that have ever appeared in the world. In the
beautiful system of the Pagan theology, their sylvan
and household deities, their nymphs, satyrs, and
fawns, were of this kind. All the barbarous nations
that have ever been discovered, have been
found to believe in, and adore, intermediate spiritual
beings, both good and evil. The Jewish religion
not only confirms the belief of their existence,
but of their tempting, deceiving, and tormenting
mankind; and the whole system of Christianity
is erected entirely on this foundation.”

Dr. Johnson wrote a satirical review of Soame
Jenyns, which had great popularity at the time.
He passes without notice the fact that men of all
ages, and of all religions, have believed that malicious
Spirits cause diseases, and tempt men, in
many ways, to their destruction; while benevolent
Spirits cure physical and mental evils, forewarn
men in dreams, and assist them in various emergencies.
There was, therefore, nothing very new or
peculiar in the suggestion of Mr. Jenyns; but Dr.
Johnson, in his rough way, caricatures it thus:
“He imagines that as we have animals not only for
food, but some for our diversion, the same privilege
may be allowed to beings above us, who may deceive,
torment, or destroy us, for the ends only of
their own pleasure or utility. He might have carried
the analogy further, much to the advantage of
his argument. He might have shown that these

hunters, whose game is man, have many sports
analogous to our own. As we drown whelps and
kittens, they amuse themselves now and then with
sinking a ship; and they stand round the fields of
Blenheim, or the walls of Prague, as we encircle a
cock-pit. As we shoot a bird flying, they knock a
man down with apoplexy, in the midst of his business
or pleasure. Perhaps some of them are virtuosi,
and delight in the operations of an asthma, as
human philosophers do in the effects of an air-pump.
Many a merry bout have these frolic beings at the
vicissitudes of an ague; and good sport it is to see
a man tumble with an epilepsy, and revive and
tumble again; and all this he knows not why.
Perhaps now and then a merry being may place
himself in such a situation as to enjoy at once all the
varieties of an epidemic disease, or amuse his leisure
with the tossings and contotrions of every possible
pain exhibited together.”

It occurred to me what bearish paws the old
Doctor, in his gruff sport, would lay upon modern
Spiritualists, if he were about in these days. I
smiled to think what an inexhaustible theme for
skeptical wit was afforded by the awkward and tedious
process of communication employed. But after
a little reflection, I said to myself, is not the common
action of Spirit upon Matter, while we are here in
the body, quite as inexplicable? If we were not
accustomed to it, would it not seem nearly as inconvenient
and laborious? The Spirit which dwells

within me, (I know not where, or how,) wishes to
communicate with a Spirit dwelling in some other
body, in another part of the world. Straightway,
the five-pronged instrument, which we call a hand,
is moved by Spirit, and promptly obeys the impulse.
It dips a piece of pointed steel into a black fluid,
and traces hieroglyphic characters invented by
Spirit to express its thought. Those letters have
been formed into words by slow elaboration of the
ages. They partake of the climate where they
grew. In Italy, they flow smoothly as water. In
Russia, they clink and clatter like iron hoofs upon
a pavement. It appears that Spirit must needs
fashion its utterance according to the environment
of Matter, in the midst of which it is placed. By a
slow and toilsome process, the child must learn
what ideas those words represent; otherwise he can
scarcely be able to communicate at all with the
Spirits in other bodies near him. If they are distant,
and his Spirit wills to converse with them, it
must impel the five-pronged instrument of bone and
sinew to take up the pointed steel, and trace, on a
substance elaborately prepared from vegetable
fibres, certain mystic characters, which, according
to their arrangement, express love or hatred, joy
or sorrow. If Spirits out of the body do indeed tip
tables and rap the alphabet, to communicate with
Spirits in the body, it must be confessed that the
machinery we poor mortals are obliged to employ,
in order to communicate with each other, is nearly
as tedious and imperfect as theirs.

Ancient oriental philosophers, and some of the
Gnostics at a later period, believed in a gradation
of successive worlds, gradually diminishing in the
force of spiritual intelligence, and consequently in
outward beauty. They supposed that each world
was an attenuated likeness, a sort of reflected image
of the world above it; that it must necessarily be
so, because, in all its parts, it was evolved from that
world. They believed that the inhabitants of each
world knew of those in the world next below them,
and were attracted toward them; but that the world
below was unconscious of the higher sphere whence
it emanated.

Swedenborg teaches that all the inferior grades
of being in this world are representative forms of
the spiritual state of mankind, and owe their existence
to the thoughts and feelings in human souls.
Thus if men had no bad passions, there would be
no lions and tigers; and if they were inwardly pure,
there would be no vermin. In other words, he
teaches that the lower forms of Nature are reflected
images of man, as the orientals taught concerning
successive worlds; and in this case also the higher
is attracted toward the lower, and wishes to communicate
with it, while the lower remains ignorant
of the existence of the higher. I knew something
of the swallows, and wanted to talk with them, but
they knew nothing of me.

Swedenborg teaches successive spheres of existence,
as did the orientals, though in another form.
He says Spirits in the sphere nearest to this earth
are attracted towards us, and wish to communicate
with us; but that some of them are in a low state,
and capable of great duplicity. Many people are
satisfied with the theory that these are the Spirits
who are believed to be rapping and tipping tables
in all parts of the country. Certain it is, many of
the phenomena that actually occur cannot possibly
be the result of jugglery; though miracles sometimes
seem to be performed by that adroit agency. Candid
minds cannot, I think, avoid the conclusion that
Spirit is acting upon Matter in some way not
explainable by any known laws of our being.
Whether it is Spirit in the body, or out of the body,
seems difficult to decide. The agents, whoever they
are, are obviously nearly on a level with our own
spiritual condition; for they tell nothing which had
not been previously known or imagined; and they
do not always tell the truth.

Minds of mystical tendencies find joy in believing
that all inspirations in religion, science, or art, come
to us from above, through the medium of ministering
Spirits, who dwell in higher spheres of intelligence
and love, and are attracted towards us by our
inward state. The fast-increasing strength of evil,
which often leads men to think the Devil drives
them into some crime, they account for by supposing
that the indulgence of wrong thoughts and feelings

brings us into affinity with Spirits below us, who
are thus enabled to influence our souls by the operation
of laws as universal and unchangeable as those
which regulate the attraction and repulsion of material
substances.

Rationalists, on the other hand, deem that all
mental influences, whether good or evil, may be
sufficiently accounted for by the activity of the soul
in any particular direction; that the indulgence of
any class of thoughts and feelings renders them continually
stronger and stronger, as the pedestrian's
leg, or the wood-cutter's arm is invigorated by frequent
use.

All these thoughts grew out of the removal of a
swallow's nest. They left me where they found me.
Temperament, and early habits of thought, inclined
me toward mystical theories; while increasing caution,
learned by the experience of many fallacies,
beckoned toward the less poetical side of austere
rationality. I remained balanced between the opposite
forces, candidly willing to admit the claims
of either. I could only bow my head in reverent
humility, and say, “On these subjects we cannot certainly
know any thing, in this imperfect state of
being. Verily, mysterious is the action of Spirit
upon Spirit, and of Spirit upon Matter.” As I
thus dismissed the subject from my mind, a voice
from some corner of my soul said, “The swallows
did not know that you took away their nest, but
you did.”