my soul's hour; this
purpled air the heart's atmosphere, melting by its breath the sealed
fountains of love, which the cold commonplace of the world had frozen:
I feel them gushing forth on every thing around me; and how worthy of
love now appear to me these innocent animals, nay, these whispering
leaves, that seem to kiss the passing air, and blush the while at
their own fondness! Surely they are happy, and grateful too that they
are so; for hark! how the little birds send up their song of praise!
and see how the waving trees and waving grass, in mute accordance,
keep time with the hymn!"

This is but one of the thousand forms in which the human spirit is
wont to effuse itself on the things without, making to the mind a
new and fairer world,--even the shadowing of that which its immortal
craving will sometimes dream of in the unknown future. Nay, there
is scarcely an object so familiar or humble, that its magical touch
cannot invest it with some poetic charm. Let us take an extreme
instance,--a pig in his sty. The painter, Morland, was able to convert
even this disgusting object into a source of pleasure,--and a pleasure
as real as any that is known to the palate.

Leaving this to have the weight it may be found to deserve, we turn
to the original question; namely, What do we mean by Human or Poetic
Truth?

When, in respect to certain objects, the effects are found to be
uniformly of the same kind, not only upon ourselves, but also upon
others, we may reasonably infer that the efficient cause is of one
nature, and that its uniformity is a necessary result. And, when we also
find that these effects, though differing in degree, are yet uniform in
their character, while they seem to proceed from objects which in
themselves are indefinitely variant, both in kind and degree, we are
still more forcibly drawn to the conclusion, that the _cause_ is not
only _one_, but not inherent in the object.[2] The question now arises,
What, then, is that which seems to us so like an _alter et idem_,--which
appears to act upon, and is recognized by us, through an animal, a bird,
a tree, and a thousand different, nay, opposing objects, in the same
way, and to the same end? The inference follows of necessity, that the
mysterious cause must be in some general law, which is absolute and
_imperative_ in relation to every such object under certain conditions.
And we receive the solution as true,--because we cannot help it. The
reality, then,