Even so it is with these hidden faculties or susceptibilities of which I have been speaking. In the notes of witching music, in the numbers of poesy, in the sight of beauty, either of nature or of art, either æsthetic or moral, these silent powers recognize a faint approximation to that beauty with which they will have to do in that world where they shall be called into action: they too recognize the kindred spirit, and, springing forward to meet it, vibrate in unison with the chord. But yet, restrained by their prison of clay, bound down by the immutable law which bids them wait their time, their great deep is but troubled, and while, from their swaying and surging, a delicious emotion spreads over the soul, filling the whole being with indescribable joy, it is an emotion which we cannot fathom, vague and undefined, at which we wonder even while we enjoy. To each and all of us the doors of heaven are closed for the present; we never have heard the songs of the celestial spheres, and how should we recognize their echo here on earth, even though that echo is swelling through our own hearts? And the sadness and yearning which such emotions invariably produce, may they not be the yearning for heaven's supernal beauty, and sadness for the chains which bar us from its full realization? Or is it the reflex of the struggles and the disappointment of that portion of the spirit which I have assigned as the mover of the emotion itself?
Carry still further the parallel of the vibrating string, and we shall illustrate the different degrees of emotion. It is only by sounding a note in exact unison with that to which the string is attuned that we get the full force of the sympathetic vibration, which is more or less distinct according as we approach or depart from the keynote, till we reach the semitone above or below, when it ceases altogether. Even so do our emotions increase in exact proportion as the exciting cause approaches perfection—according as the beauty heard or seen or felt approaches the heavenly keynote. A simple ballad awakens a quiet pleasure, while the magnificent symphonies of Beethoven or Mozart fill the soul with a rapture with which the former feeling is no more to be compared than the brooklet with the ocean; for the latter is inexpressibly nearer to its heavenly model.
Carry out the theory to its legitimate result, and we shall see that if it were possible to produce, here on earth, music equal to that which rings through the celestial arches—if it were possible here to create beauty in any form, which should fully equal that which shall greet the freed spirit on its entrance into that better world, then indeed would our emotions reach their highest possible climax; then indeed should we hear and see and feel, not with the bodily senses, but with the senses of the soul; then would there be no vagueness, no sadness in the feeling as now, but clear and well defined would be our knowledge, comprehending all spiritual things. Then would our heaven be here on earth, and we should desire no other. Wisely has a great and merciful God thrown an impenetrable veil between the soul and its future belongings, and clipped its wings lest it soar too soon.
So much for a simple strain of music. A trifling matter, perhaps you will say, to make so much talk about. Not quite so trifling as you may think, however; for a single musical chord is a more important and complex thing than to the careless ear it would seem. Who ever cares to study a single chord of music? And yet how few are there who know that it is composed of not three or four but a myriad of separate and distinct sounds, appreciable in exact proportion to the cultivation of the ear? The uncultivated ear perceives but the three or four primitive or fundamental notes of the chord, while, to the nicer perception, the more delicate susceptibility of the ear trained by long study and practice to analyze all musical sounds, come harmonic above harmonic, sounds of melody above, beneath, and beyond the few prime motors which act as the nucleus to the gush of tiny harmony which fills the ear—sounds clear and distinct, yet blending in perfect order and symmetry with their fundamental notes, and partaking so much of their character and following with such unerring certainty their direction as to become voiceless to the ear unskilled.
And why should this not be so? Is it not reasonable to suppose that the current of undulations in the atmosphere producing these united sounds should communicate its agitation in some degree to the circumambient air, creating thousands of delicate ramifications branching off in all possible directions from the main channel, yet all partaking of its peculiar character, and becoming in themselves separate sounds, yet consonant and harmonious?
Ah! could we but see the vibrations of the atmosphere which a single musical chord produces—the rolling bass, the gliding alto, the sweeping soprano, and the soaring tenor, rolling onward in one broad channel of harmony, with its myriad tributary streams of thirds and fifths, and its curling, twinkling, shifting, blending, soaring mists of delicate-toned harmonics, how would our enjoyment of music be enhanced! how would both eye and ear be delighted, enraptured with the poetry of motion, the harmony of sound, the eternal and indestructible order and concord and consonance of both sight and sound! But this is reserved for the experience of pure spirit—this is reserved to enhance the beauty of the celestial realm. Some day we shall see and hear and know it all—some day in that heavenly future, when the soul of man shall converse and praise and adore in one blended strain of æsthetic beauty, which shall contain within itself the essence of all music and poesy and enraptured sight.
Thinking thus earnestly about the soul, one comes naturally to speculate upon the question of the spirit's return to earth after its final departure from the body. It is a beautiful belief that the souls of our departed friends are permitted to hover around us here on earth, watching all our outgoings and incomings, sympathizing in all our joys and sorrows, mourning over our transgressions, and rejoicing at our good deeds—in a word, acting the parts of guardian angels. And there are many, even in our day, who hold such a faith. Yet it is a belief founded in imagination and poetic ideas of beauty, rather than in sober truth either of reason or of revelation. The strongest argument I have ever heard against this belief is contained in the remark of a poor old English peasant. 'Sir,' said he, 'I doan't believe the speerits can come back to us; for if they go to the good place, they doan't want to come back 'ere again; and if they goes to the bad place, why God woan't let 'em.' There was more philosophy in the remark than he knew of, and I have not yet found the philosopher who did not stagger under it.
But there is another view of the subject. I hold that the bodily senses can only perceive material things; and the spirit spiritual things; and hence, that, admitting the actual presence of disembodied spirits, neither could we perceive them, nor they us, as material bodies. They might, indeed, perceive the souls within us, but could only be cognizant of our actions as those of pure spirit; while we, blinded by the impenetrable screen of the body, would be debarred of even this recognition.
For through only three of the bodily senses—sight, hearing, and feeling—have the boldest of so-called spiritualists dared to attempt the proof of their doctrine. To begin with the latter, the essential quality of the sense of feeling is resistance, without which there can be no perception. And what is resistance? In one class of cases it is simply the vis inertiæ of matter: in the other and only remaining one, the opposition of some material matter to the force of gravity. Even the perception of the lightest zephyr depends upon the resistance of the atmosphere. Does spirit possess this quality of resistance? The argument on this head is closed the moment the distinction is made between material things and spiritual.
If the wave theory of light and sound be correct—and it is so generally accepted that few writers dare risk their reputations in the defence of any other—the senses of sight and hearing come, for the purposes of this argument, in the same category. Nothing can affect the ear which is not capable of producing vibration in the atmosphere, which may be considered, in comparison with pure spirit, a material substance. Here again the argument is clinched by the mere distinction between matter and spirit, the one being the very antipodes of and incapable of acting upon the other.