The intellectual intuition of the infinite, which we have endeavoured to vindicate, so far attests this correspondence; but the inspired utterance of the Poet in reference to the soul of nature, no less bears it witness. The identity or affinity of the force within him and the forces without, is felt by the poet when the speculative thinker perceives it not. He cannot analyse into its constituent elements the mystic meaning of the universe which is flashed into his soul in moments of glowing inspiration, as the chemist analyses his earths in a crucible. But he is the
'Mighty prophet, seer blest,
With whom these truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our years to find
In darkness lost.'
And he may be able to help the merely scientific explorer out of that abyss of mystery in which he is speculatively lost, and to save him from erecting an altar to 'the unknown God.' While his soul, in 'a wise passiveness,' lies open to the visitations of the supernatural, he sees a vision, and he hears a voice, of which he can give no scientific explanation, but which announces to him the 'open secret.'
Perhaps the finest description of the characteristics of the soul's intuitions is that given by Lowell, 'the prevailing poet' of America. He writes—
'As blind nestlings, unafraid,
Stretch up wide-mouthed to every shade,
By which their downy dream is stirred,