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UNIVERSAL CORRESPONDENCES IN THE PLAN

OF PROVIDENCE.

WE had occasion, in the text, to quote a passage from Lord Bacon, in which, after remarking that there are similitudes or correspondences in nature even between things that seem at first view most unlike to each other---he concludes a long list of such correspondences with the following profound and beautiful observation: "Neither are these only similitudes, as men of narrow observation may conceive them to be, but the same footsteps of nature, treading or printing upon several subjects or matters."

What we mean, however, by the title of the present note, is not simply, that there is one universal plan pervading all nature--binding all its departments by one law---and leading them all forward to one result---but that the plan or scheme of nature is repeated in all the different departments and degrees of her operations---insomuch, that the simplest and humblest of her works are miniature models of the highest---and that we may learn the grand outlines of her scheme as perfectly in its smallest specimens as in those that are most magnificent and comprehensive, provided we have the sagacity and the attention to study the scheme, in these its miniature details, with justness and success.

Thus, the life of any one individual of the human family is essentially, or in its great outlines, the same with that of every other member of the race---so that however varied the scheme may be in the history of all the myriads of the human family— still it is the same scheme, which is never departed from in its essential elements, but only varied in the exhibition of these elements, according to that universal law which provides, that the history of no one individual shall embrace precisely the same events with that of any other, though the same scheme or order of progress is still observed pervading them all---or, in the words of the sacred writings, also quoted by Bacon in connection

with the passage already mentioned, "didici quod omnia opera, quæ fecit Deus perseverant in perpetuum; non possumus eis quicquam addere, nec auferre." The lives of the individuals of the human race also correspond in their general scheme of progress and development, with the history of the families of which the race, on an ascending scale, is composed---the history of each family, like that of the individuals which compose it, has also a correspondence or relation to that of all the other families that make up the one household of the common parent-the lots of families, by an adherence to the same law, correspond in their general aspect with those of communities and nations-the fates of particular nations are but one manifestation of the entire lot of the race -and the same plan thus continuing to preserve itself, we may conclude, that the race itself, in its entire history on the face of our earth, and throughout its successive generations, has a correspondence with the whole scheme, though no doubt greatly varied in its developments, which is continued throughout the vast host of worlds-in their progressive histories—that make up the universal plan of the Divine dominions. Or, in the words of a great and enlightened author of the last age-" from the unity of the Divine nature, we may justly infer, that the universe is one immense kingdom, governed and administered by the same legislative and executive power-and though this consideration alone will not hinder but that it may be divided into many distinct principalities, each separate within itself, and having no communication with the rest, yet when we reflect upon the mutual dependence of things in this world, and how much their interests are interwoven, we shall find reason to believe that there is a like connection of interests running throughout the whole."

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We repeat, however, that what we mean precisely to state in the present note is, not simply that there is one vast scheme binding all the portions of nature and of life together-and connecting things earthly with things heavenly and unseen, by one common bond-but that the plan upon which the whole is formed, is repeated throughout the whole of its portions, from the very highest to the lowest and most simple or obscure so that amidst an infinite variety in its particular developments, corre

sponding with the infinite variety of the powers and interests of the creatures, there is still the same scheme seen meeting us at all moments-and often awakening not less wonder by its beauty and perfection in the smallest than in the highest and most magnificent of the portions of which the whole is composed.

The observation of Lord Bacon, we have already said, had an especial reference to things that are generally considered to be unlike each other-but throughout which he has traced, with that comprehensive and fine imagination which belonged to him, a unity of scheme, making even the most apparently dissonant parts of the entire plan to have a resemblance to each other-and binding the whole into one great manifestation of Divine Wisdom and Power-on the entire face of which may be observed the same "footseps of nature treading or printing upon several subjects or matters." The noting of such resemblances he justly considers as forming one portion of a complete and philosophical history of the plan of Providence—and its object he states to be--"that it be a receptacle for all such profitable observations and axioms as fall not within the compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or the sciences, but are more common and of a higher stage."

As a specimen of the kind of analogies to which he alludes--"Was not," says he, "the Persian magic, a reduction or correspondence of the principles and architecture of nature to the rules and policy of governments? Is not the precept of a musician to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord or sweet accord, alike true in affection? Is not the trope of music to avoid or slide from the clause or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric, of deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music the same with the playing of light upon the water? Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of reflection ?---the eye with a glass---the ear with a cave or street determined and bounded?

"This science," he adds, "as I understand it, I may, however, justly report as deficient: for I see sometimes the profounder sort of wits, in handling some particular argument, will now and then draw a bucket of water out of this well for their present use; but the spring-head thereof seemeth to me not to

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have been visited; being of so excellent use both for the disclosing of nature and the abridgment of art."

We have made these quotations merely with the view of shewing what were the kind of conceits which Bacon had in contemplation, when he made the general observation we are now employed in illustrating---but our purpose relates not to any such imaginative or merely fictitious analogies or resemblances— but to actual and strictly philosophical correspondences between all the portions, great and small, of the one scheme---and it is further, not to inanimate, or merely organized nature, that our view is at present limited---but to the correspondences that connect together, and make parts of one grand whole, all the different portions and manifestations of life and of society. And the following important conclusions may be deduced from the general fact we have been endeavouring to state :

In the first place, that as every human being is thus, in his nature and history, a miniature of the entire scheme of things, there is no individual gifted with life and reason---and with the common appurtenances of human nature, who has not, in that gift, essentially a just, and in one view of it, a complete idea of what life, as manifested on the face of this earth, really and truly is---that is to say, there is nothing essential to the kind of life and experience that belongs to the human race, that is not as perfectly known to the most uninstructed inhabitant of the poorest cottage on the face of our world---as to any other human being whom we can select, though he should have been gifted with all the endowments of intellect or of fortune-and though the course which he may have run in life, may have widened immensely his view of the particular aspects and events into which the common gift of life, as belonging to a rational nature, is capable of being branched. Each man is a miniature of the whole human nature which belongs to all his race---and, provided his essential powers be as perfect, his knowledge of human life---understanding that term in its most general sense---actually is as complete as if he had been permitted to see that life in the widest and most striking variety of incidents it is capable of embracing.

No doubt, in the second place, there are all varieties in the extent to which observation of the particular aspects which that life

may assume---and the infinite variety of incidents which it may embrace, may be carried in the cases of different individuals--and in this sense of the term human life, it could not be affirmed, that the knowledge of all the individuals of the human family is in any thing like the same degree extended. But yet it is worthy of remark, that the utmost reach to which this particular knowledge may extend, never discovers any thing out of the grand scheme which pervades the whole---and that in fact, our real wonder is not so much awakened, on such a comprehensive view of the histories of men, by the mere variety of new facts that offer themselves to our observation, or by the aspects which the histories of individuals may assume---as by the conviction which, amidst all this variety, is incessantly forced on us, that infinite as this variety is, it still presents itself as but new disclosures of the same scheme---and thus only substantiates the unity which, at first view, it seems to overpower by its multiplicity. In the words already quoted, it is still the "same footsteps of nature treading or printing on different matters."

And it hence follows, in the third place, that every human being carries constantly about with him, the materials of an almost infinite depth, and reach of knowledge---which he cannot indeed state to himself in words---and of which he has not even a distinct consciousness that he is in possession of it, but which yet influences him at all times in the most essential movements and actions of his life and which may become, if he has the power of looking deeply and with concentration of thought into his own stores, a fountain of truth of a kind that is at once exhaustless in its abundance-and of the purest and most valuable qualities, both for the enlargement of his understanding and the purification of his heart and conduct. Every man is an infinite mystery even to himself and he may see the same footsteps of nature as magnificently and beautifully revealed, on the living tablet of his own heart, if he has but the power of looking steadily on its living wonders—as on the vast spectacle of inanimate nature, with all its boundless grandeur -and surpassing complication and splendour of parts.

Hence also it follows, that he who judges correctly of any of the portions of nature, or of life, that lie immediately within the reach of his mind, or who has that native justness of perception

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