Consolations of Philosophy [pp. 322-328]

CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY.
ART. V.-CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY.
"But soon philosophy came to my aid
And whispered-" BYRON.
[Long years ago, while yet a student, emulous of the honors of Alma Mater,
and full of the wild dreamings of youth, without any of the ballast which every
day adds to the ship of life, until at last it sinks it, we wrote many things,
distinguished, perhaps, in degrees of demerit but having points of interest, when
examined even after a lapse of twenty years. ()f this class, we have quite a
wheelbarrow load, and being in the humor, just now, plunge an arm into their
midst to bring up the following, which, correcting a word here and a line there,
we are tempted to print. What matter, if our sterner and more chastened judgment condemn the sentiment or the style, theTe are readers enough of the REVIEW, luxuriating yet in the happy minority in which we then wrote, who may
not think them execrable. Alas! not a weed which sprung up in the ways we
were then privileged to tread, but what had fragrance and coloring, which belong
not even to flowers now.-EDITOR.]
THE designs of Providence, with respect to our condition,
when the connection between the material and immaterial is
dissolved-in what peculiar manner that connection is maintained, and how far mind itself would b)e susceptible of pleasure and pain, without the intervention of matter-are questions which have perplexed the inquisitive and speculative in
every age, and may fairly be regarded as beyond the range of
unassisted reason.
With respect to the present state of existence, we know, indeed, that there is a close and intimate relation, between what
we call the intellectual and the sensual, the incorporeal and
the corporeal; and that the sublime flights of soul, or mind,
whichever is preferred, its vast capabilities, and apparently
unlimited range, are dependent primarily, upon the material
world; without that world, this "invisible essence, possessing
the capacity and elements of harmony, would be voiceless and
silent."
Considering man as he is, and in view of this connection,
we find him to be an existence susceptible of the most intense
degrrees of pleasure and of pain, and that changes in his men.
tat state ensue with the various and complicated changes in
the external world, being agreeable or disagreeable, in virtue
of some law of which we are ignorant. This effect is independent of any volition on his part; for, as Shakespeare has
said, who can
"Hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking of the frosty Caucasus!"
The same senses, whose delicate adjustment, and minute
adaptation, convey to the mind at ofe moment, the most intense
delight, in the very next,.may be the vehicles of torture
equally intense; and certain objects, phenomena, or events in
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