CHAPTER XII. THE TYPES. THERE are strange parallelisms in the different kinds of truth, which, the more they are searched into, surprise us the more, alike by their beauty and their exactness. Each separate order of truth seems to have its separate orbit, yet all have but one centre. One mind, one purpose, one law, one principle, may be traced throughout them all. The different orders of truth displayed in the inanimate, the animate, the sentient, the intelligent creation, are instances of what we mean. They are very widely different from each other, yet they present innumerable points of curious coincidence, and connexion, and likeness. They form so many separate strata, superimposed upon each other, most diverse in structure and formation, yet full of resemblances and indentations the one into the other. Man's course is between two of these parallel strata. He walks upon the uppermost of the material, but under the lowest of the immaterial. All the former are under his feet; all the latter are above or within him. All that is beneath him, the visible, the tangible, the sensible,—he can grasp, he can name, he can point to, he can discourse of, easily and directly. No intricate process needs to be resorted to; no complex sign is to be invented. There is nothing required but an equation of the simplest kind. At the most, it is but the adding or subtracting of similar or kindred facts. The earth, the sea, the hills, the woods, the rivers,-these are some of the objects of the material strata, which can be easily grasped, and named, and spoken of, by simple signs. The addition or subtraction of certain facts observed in each, enables us to speak of them in whole or in part, according as we desire. If I speak of the sea, I use a word expressive of certain visible or tangible properties observable in the object. If I speak of the Sea of Galilee, I use a word which expresses the subtraction of certain parts from the former object. If I speak of a wave, I use a word which is founded upon the observation of a still greater subtraction from the parts or properties of the original object. All this is so far simple. It is merely the understanding, finding, or inventing a sign for what the senses have observed, and that sign not an arbitrary one, but naturally suggested by the objects them selves. The contact of our senses with these objects, has set us a thinking about them; and our desire to remember, register, and communicate these thoughts, has led us to devise these primary and simple signs, expressive of the material objects around us. But all this merely refers to what we have called the lower and material strata of things, on the surface of which man is walking. He has, however, something more to arrest his eye, and occupy his thoughts, and exercise his invention. There is a vast, an infinite world above and within him, and this world is all immaterial and impalpable. It is altogether different from the former. It is not less real or true; but then it cannot be grasped nor observed by any of his senses. It is far more mysterious and incomprehensible, approaching very near, nay, surrounding him at every point, yet stretching up and away into infinite heights, unsearchable recesses, and unfathomable depths. In thinking and speaking of this inner and upper world, he is brought to a stand. It is so vast, so glorious, so real, yet so inaccessible and so impalpable. In the former case, that of the world beneath his feet, he was like one grasping some sand upon the sea-shore,— a thing easily and simply done. In this, however, he is like one attempting to grasp the mighty rock, whose broad base that sand is circling; or rather, we might say, like one seeking to lay hold of the thin mist or thinner air. What is he to do? How is he to fasten his thoughts upon these immaterial objects, so as to lay hold of them, understand them, speak of them, record them and his own thoughts regarding them? Direct signs are impossible, for these objects are silent and intangible. They and the senses do not come into direct contact, and hold no immediate communication together. An interpreter is needed. He must have some instrument by which he can fix his thoughts upon this solid rock-some wedge which he can force into its crevices to detach fragments for his usesomething to enable him to understand, to grasp, and speak of this immaterial world with which he is compassed about. As he passes along between the two parallel strata of truth, the one beneath his feet and quite intelligible, the other above his head and altogether mysterious and incomprehensible,—he perceives that at certain points these two separate strata touch each other, and are, in a considerable degree, assimilated to each other. He observes some things common between them-common facts, common features, common principles, common laws, indications of oneness in certain things, and up to a certain extent. seizes on as means for grasping the rest. By means of these he gets an insight into the infinite world, which stretching out in its invisible and impalpable vastness on every side, seemed to mock every effort at comprehension. By means of that part of truth which he does comprehend, he learns to lay hold of that which hitherto had been nothing but an undefined region of mysterious majesty. These resemblances he at once An idea of a spiritual or immaterial object is not a thing to be learned at once, or grasped in a moment; it must enter the mind in parts and pieces, and these parts or pieces make good their passage into the mind under cover of some material fact, or what we call emblem. This fact is a thing already understood; we keep it constantly before us; we fix especially upon its prominent and characteristic points; we revolve these day by day; in them there seems to be wrapt up a principle, an idea different from them, yet connected with them, and with which, by reason of this connexion, we have become familiar. As we contemplate this idea, it seems to disengage itself from its material enclosure and rise upwards, and we find that in reality it forms part of a higher circle of truths, and belongs to that very region which we had deemed so entirely inaccessible. While we knew it only in connexion with the lower order of material |