The Teutonic water-gods were "wise"—they could foretell the future. In classical mythology, Proteus, the old man of the sea, presents himself as a well-developed embodiment of this belief. Old Homer knew how to use the material thus provided, and Virgil, in his choicest manner, follows the lead so given. In the fourth book of the Georgics, Aristaeus, who had lost his bees, in despair appealed to his mother, the river-nymph, Cyrene. She bids him consult Proteus, the old prophet of the sea. He follows her counsel, captures Proteus, and compels him to tell the cause of his trouble. "The seer at last constrained by force, rolled on him eyes fierce-sparkling with grey light, and gnashing his teeth in wrath, opened his lips to speak the oracles of fate."
Once more the transient must be allowed to fall away, and the central intuition be recognised and grasped. The sense of a secret to be gained, of a mystery to be revealed—of a broken reflection of some fuller world—has been nurtured by the reflections of form and light and colour in nature's mirror. The older, simpler impressions made by such phenomena persist with deeper meanings. The "natural" emotion they stimulate affords the kind of sustenance on which Nature Mysticism can thrive. Longfellow, in his poem, "The Bridge," strikes the deeper note. The rushing water draws the poet's reflections away from a world of imperfection to the sphere of the ideal.
"And for ever and for ever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;
The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven
And its wavering image here."
And thus the mountain tarn, the placid lake, the quiet river reaches, the hidden pool, and the ocean at rest, have each and all their soul language, and can speak to man as a sharer of soul-nature. Well might the Hebrew psalmist give us one of the marks of the Divine Shepherd—"He leadeth me beside the still waters."
CHAPTER XXV
ANAXIMENES AND THE AIR
Hitherto our attention has been almost exclusively fixed upon the mystical influences of water in motion or at rest. And even though we went no farther afield, a fair presentment has been gained of what a modern nature-mystic might advance in explanation and defence of his characteristic views and modes of experience. We now turn to consider other ranges of physical phenomena, which, though of equal dignity and significance, will not meet with equal fullness of treatment—otherwise the limits proposed for this study would be seriously exceeded.
We have seen how and why Thales deemed water to be the Welt-stoff. His immediate successors, while adhering to his principles and aims, were not content with his choice. They successively sought for something less material. One of them, Anaximenes, was attracted by the qualities and functions of the atmosphere, and his speculations will serve as an introduction to the mysticism of winds and storms and clouds. Only a single statement of his is preserved in its original form; but fortunately it is full of significance. "As our soul" (said the sage), "which is air, holds us together, so wind and air encompass the whole world." This, interpreted in the light of ancient comments, shows that Anaximenes compared the breath of life to the air, and regarded the two as essentially related—indeed as identical. For the breath, he thought, holds together both animal and human life; and so the air holds together the whole world in a complex unity. He reached the wider doctrine by observing that the air is, to all appearance, infinitely extended, and that earth, water, and fire seem to be but islands in an ocean which spreads around them on all sides, penetrating their inmost pores, and bathing their smallest atoms. It was on such facts and appearances that he based his main doctrine. If we think of the modern theory of the luminiferous ether, we shall not be far from his view-point. But the simpler and more obvious qualities of the air would of course not be without their influence—its mobility and incessant motion; its immateriality; its inexhaustibility; its seeming eternity. It is, therefore, not astonishing that with his attention thus focussed on a group of truly wonderful phenomena, the old nature-philosopher should have selected air as his primary substance—as the universal vehicle of vital and psychic force.