grosser material influences, as the Handsome, the Pretty, the Comely,
the Plain, &c., till we fall to the Ugly.

There ends the chain of pleasurable excitement; but not the chain of
Forms; which, taking now as if a literal curve, again bends upward,
till, meeting the descending extreme of the moral, it seems to
complete the mighty circle. And in this dark segment will be found the
startling union of deepening discords,--still deepening, as it rises
from the Ugly to the Loathsome, the Horrible, the Frightful,[1] the
Appalling.

As we follow the chain through this last region of disease, misery,
and sin, of embodied Discord, and feel, as we must, in the mutilated
affinities of its revolting forms, their fearful relation to this
fair, harmonious creation,--how does the awful fact, in these its
breathing fragments, speak to us of a fallen world!

As the living centre of this stupendous circle stands the Soul of Man;
the _conscious Reality_, to which the vast inclosure is but the
symbol. How vast, then, his being! If space could measure it, the
remotest star would fall within its limits. Well, then, may he tremble
to essay it even in thought; for where must it carry him,--that winged
messenger, fleeter than light? Where but to the confines of the
Infinite; even to the presence of the unutterable _Life_, on
which nothing finite can look and live?

Finally, we shall conclude our Discourse with a few words on the
master Principle, which we have supposed to be, by the will of the
Creator, the realizing life to all things fair and true and good: and
more especially would we revert to its spiritual purity, emphatically
manifested through all its manifold operations,--so impossible
of alliance with any thing sordid, or false, or wicked,--so
unapprehensible, even, except for its own most sinless sake. Indeed,
we cannot look upon it as other than the universal and eternal witness
of God's goodness and love, to draw man to himself, and to testify
to the meanest, most obliquitous mind,--at least once in life, be it
though in childhood,--that there _is_ such a thing as _good
without self_. It will be remembered, that, in all the various
examples adduced, in which we have endeavoured to illustrate the
operation of Harmony, there was but one character to all its effects,
whatever the difference in the objects that occasioned them; that it
was ever untinged with any personal taint: and we concluded thence
its supernal source. We may n