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    deeply interesting question till a more extended view of his sub- * ject shall have enabled him to rest its solution on the collected analogies of nature . In the arrangement of the universe may be discerned an ascending scale of forms and powers : every power in nature has its organ ; the organ , however ^ is distinct from the power , which

    only acts through its instrumentality . Every combination of powers known to us indicates progress and tendency to something higher . Man ' s nature exhibits a system of spiritual powers , operating through the medium of appointed organs , and terminating the visible climax of creation . Hence the present condition of humanity may be considered as a preparation for some *

    thing yet to come ; the connecting link of two worlds , the last stage of the animal and the first of the spiritual world ; and hence only can be solved the apparent contradictions of man ' s character and condition . This view / says Herder , ' which rests on the universal laws of nature , furnishes us with the only solution of the wonderful phenomena of man , and consequently with the only clue to the genuine philosophy of his history * . '

    Speaking of our ceaseless tendency onwards , and of our inability to picture to our imaginations the scenes which are yet to be revealed , he thus beautifully and feelingly illustrates his meaning : 4 Enough for us that all the transmutations which we notice in the lower kingdoms of nature are progressions to something' more perfect , and that we have thus an intimation at least of scenes , into which , for higher reasons , we are here incapable of looking . The flower unfolds

    itself to the eye as a sprout , then as a bud ; the bud becomes a blossom ; and now first from the blossom shoots forth the perfect flower , which commences its existence in the order described . Similar developments and changes occur in many other parts of creation , amongst which the butterfly furnishes a well known emblem . See I there crawls the unsightly caterpillar , obeying * the gross instinct of subsistence . Its hour arrives ; the faintness of death seizes it ; and , as in a

    windingsheet , it wraps itself in the web which nature has already provided . Now its external organization stirs into a new life . Long and wearily at first goes on the transmutation—it seems to be destruction . Ten feet still adhere to the rejected skin , and the new being is as yet unformed in its limbs . Gradually these fashion and arrange themselves ; but the being awakes not till it is all there . Now it bursts forth into light , and in an instant the last development takes place . A few

    minutes more , and the sod pinions spread themselves into five times the magnitude they possessed under the integuments of death , endued with an elastic spring , and radiant with all the hues which only the presence of the sun can bestow ; expanded and ample to sustain the new-created being on the gentle undulations of the zephyr . Its whole structure is metamorphosed : no longer feeding on the coarse nourishment of leaves , it sips the nectar-dew from the golden chalice of * Fifth Book , vi ., p . 237 .

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    The Philosophy of the History of Mankind . 41

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1832, page 41, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1804/page/41/