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 CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY 
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 LAST DAYS OF A PHILOSOPHER 
 
 BY 
 
 SIE HUMPHKY DAVY, BART. 
 
 Late President of the Royal Society 
 
 CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED 
 
 LONDON, PARIS $ MELBOURNE
 
 
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 TY OP CALIPORN: 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 HUMPHRY DAVY was born at Penzance, in Cornwall, on 
 the 17th of December, 1778, and died at Geneva on the 
 29th of May, 1829, at the age of fifty. He was a philo- 
 sopher who turned knowledge to wisdom ; he was one of the 
 foremost of our English men of science ; and this book, 
 written when he was dying, which makes Reason the 
 companion of Faith, shows how he passed through the 
 light of earth into the light of heaven. 
 
 His father had a small patrimony at Varfell, in Ludgvan. 
 His mother had lost in early childhood both her parents 
 within a few hours of each other, and had been adopted by 
 John Tonkin, an eminent surgeon in Penzance, to whom, 
 
 therefore, so to speak, Humphry Davy became grandson 
 by adoption. There were five such grandchildren 
 Humphry, the elder of two boys, the other boy being 
 
 named John, and three girls. 
 
 At a preparatory school and at the Penzance Grammar 
 School Humphry Davy was a noticeable boy. He read 
 eagerly and showed great quickness of imagination, delighted 
 in legends, when eight years old told stories to his com- 
 panions, and as a boy wrote verse. There was a Quaker 
 saddler who made for himself an electrical machine and 
 mechanical models, in which young Davy took keen interest, 
 and from that saddler, Robert Dunkin, came the first 
 impulse towards experiments in science. At fifteen Davy 
 was placed for further education at a school in Truro. A 
 year later his father died, and John Tonkin apprenticed 
 him, on the 10th of February, 1795, to Dr. Borlase, a 
 surgeon in large practice at Penzance. Medical practi- 
 tioners in those days dispensed their own medicines, and the 
 inquiring mind of this young apprentice being let loose upon 
 a store-room of chemicals, experimental chemistry became 
 his favourite pursuit. His grandfather, by adoption, allowed 
 him to fit up a garret as a laboratory, notwithstanding
 
 6 IXfS&TJCTION. 
 
 the fears of the household that " This boy, Humphry, will 
 blow us all into the air." 
 
 Activity and originality of mind, with a persistent habit 
 of inquiry and experiment, brought Davy friends who could 
 appreciate and help him. "When Dr. Beddoes, of Bristol, 
 WHS examining the Cornish coast, in 1798, he came upon 
 young Humphry Davy, was told of researches made by 
 him, and urged to engage him as laboratory assistant in a 
 Pneumatic Institution that he was then establishing in 
 Bristol. Davy went in October, 1798, then in his twentieth 
 year; but his good friend, and grandfather by adoption, 
 had set his heart upon Humphry's becoming an eminent 
 surgeon, and even altered his will when his boy yielded to 
 the temptation of a laboratory for research. Men also know 
 something of the trouble of the hen who has a chance 
 duckling in her brood, and sees that contumacious chicken 
 run into the water deaf to all the warnings of her love. 
 
 At Bristol Humphry Davy came into companionship 
 with Coleridge and Southey, who were then also at the 
 outset of their career, and there are poems of his in the 
 Poetical Anthology then published by Southey. But 
 at the same time Davy contributed papers on "Heat, 
 Light, and the Combinations of Light," on "Phos-Oxygen 
 and its Combinations," and on " The Theory of Respira- 
 tion," to a volume of West Country Collections, that filled 
 more than half the volume. He was experimenting then 
 on gases and on galvanism, and one day by experiment 
 upon himself, in the breathing of carburetted hydrogen, he 
 almost put an end to his life. 
 
 In 1799 Count Rumford was founding the Royal Institu- 
 tion, and its home in Albemarle Street was then bought 
 for it. The first lecturer appointed was in bad health, and 
 in 1801 he was obliged to resign. Young Davy was now 
 known to men of science for the number and freshness of 
 his experiments, and for the substantial value of his 
 chemical discoveries. It was resolved by the managers, 
 in July, 1801, that Humphry Davy be appointed Assistant- 
 Lecturer in Chemistry, Director of the Chemical Labora- 
 tory, and assistant-editor of the journals of the Royal 
 Institution. His first remuneration was a room in the 
 house, coals and candles, and 100 a year. Coiint Rum- 
 ford held out the prospect of a professorship with. 300 a
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 year, and the certainty of full support in the use of the 
 laboratory for his own private research. His age then was 
 twenty-three. He at once satisfied men of science and 
 amused people of fashion. His energy was unbounded ; 
 there was a fascination in his personal character and manner. 
 He was a genial and delightful lecturer, and his inventive 
 genius was continually finding something new. A first 
 suggestion of the process of photography was dropped 
 incidentally among the records of researches that attracted 
 more attention. Davy had been little more than a year 
 at the Eoyal Institution when he was made its Professor of 
 Chemistry. After another year he was made a Fellow. 
 Dr. Paris, his biographer, says that " the enthuiastic ad- 
 miration which his lectures obtained is at this period 
 scarcely to be imagined. Men of the first rank and talent 
 the literary and the scientific, the practical, the theo- 
 retical blue-stockings and women of fashion, the old and the 
 young, all crowded eagerly crowded the lecture-room." 
 At the beginning of the year 1805 his salary was raised to 
 400 a year. In May of that year the Royal Society 
 awarded to him the Copley Medal. Within the next two 
 years he was elected Secretary of the Royal Society. Since 
 1800 he had been advancing knowledge by experiments 
 with galvanism. The Royal Institution raised a special 
 fund to place at his disposal a more powerful galvanic 
 battery than any that had been constructed. The fame of 
 his discoveries spread over Europe. 
 
 The Institute of France gave Davy the Napoleon Prize 
 of three thousand francs for the best experiments in gal- 
 vanism. Dublin, in 1810, paid Davy four hundred guineas 
 for some lectures upon his discoveries. The Farming Society 
 of Ireland gave him 750 for six lectures on chemistry 
 applied to agriculture. In the following year he received 
 more than a thousand pounds for two courses of lectures at 
 Dublin, and was sent home with the honorary degree of LL.D. 
 In April, 1812, he was knighted, resigned his professorship 
 at the Royal Institution, and " in order more strongly to 
 mark the high sense of his merits " he was elected Honorary 
 Professor of Chemistry. In the same month Davy married 
 a young and rich widow, who had charmed all Edinburgh 
 by her beauty and her wit. Two months after marriage 
 Sir Humphry Davy dedicated to his wife his " Elements of
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Chemical Philosophy." In March, 1813, he published his 
 " Elements of Agricultural Chemistry." He travelled 
 abroad, and was received with honour by the chief men of 
 science in all places that he visited. When, at Pa via, he 
 first met Yolta : he found that Volta had put on full-dress 
 to receive him. 
 
 In August, 1815, Davy's attention was drawn to the loss 
 of life by explosions of fire-damp, and by the end of the 
 year he had devised his safety-lamp. The coal owners sub- 
 scribed 1,500 for a testimonial, gave him also a dinner and 
 a service of plate. In October, 1818, he was made a baronet. 
 In November, 1820, he was elected President of the Eoyal 
 Society. 
 
 His next researches were chiefly on electro-magnetism 
 and the protection of the copper sheathing on ships' bottoms. 
 At the end of 1826 his health failed seriously. He went to 
 Italy; resigned, in July, 1827, the Presidency of the Royal 
 Society ; came back to England, longing for ' ' the fresh air 
 of the mountains ;" wrote and published his " Salmonia, or 
 Days of Fly-fishing." In the spring of 1828 he left 
 England again. He was at Eome in the winter of 1829, 
 still engaged in quiet research, and it was then that he 
 wrote nis " Consolations in Travel ; or, the Last Days of 
 a Philosopher." His wife, who shone in London society, 
 did not go with him upon this last journey, but travelled 
 day and night to reach him when word came to her and to 
 his brother John, who was a physician, that he had again 
 been struck with palsy and was dying. That stroke of 
 palsy followed immediately upon the finishing of the book 
 now in the reader's hand. Davy lived to see again his wife 
 and brother, rallied enough to leave Rome with them, and 
 had got as far as Geneva on the 28th of May, 1829i. He 
 died in the next night. jj. M.
 
 A NOTE, 
 
 Prefixed to the First Edition, by Sir Humphry 
 Davifs Brother. 
 
 As is stated in the Preface which follows, this work 
 was composed during a period of bodily indisposition ; 
 it was concluded at the very moment of the invasion 
 of the Author's last illness. Had his life been pro- 
 longed, it is probable that some additions and some 
 changes would have been made. The editor does not 
 consider himself warranted to do more than give to the 
 world a faithful copy, making only a few omissions 
 and a few verbal alterations. The characters of the 
 persons of the dialogue were intended to be ideal, at 
 least in great part such they should be considered by 
 the reader ; and, it is to be hoped, that the incidents 
 introduced, as well as the persons, will be viewed only 
 as subordinate and subservient to the sentiments and 
 doctrines. The dedication, it may be specially noticed, 
 is the author's own, and in the very words dictated by 
 him, at a time when he had lost the power of writing 
 except with extreme difficulty, owing to the paralytic 
 attack, although he retained in a very remarkable 
 manner all his mental faculties unimpaired and un- 
 clouded. 
 
 JOHN DAYY. 
 London, 
 January 6th, 1830.
 
 TO 
 
 THOMAS POOLE, ESQ. 
 
 OF NETHER STOWKY 
 IN REMEMBRANCE OF 
 
 THIRTY YEARS OF CONTINUED AND FAITHPDI. 
 FRIENDSHIP.
 
 AUTHORS PKEFACE. 
 
 SALMONIA was written during the time of a partial 
 recovery from a long and dangerous illness. The 
 present work was composed immediately after, under 
 the same unfavourable and painful circumstances, and 
 at a period when the constitution of the Author suffered 
 from new attacks. He has derived some pleasure and 
 some consolation, when most other sources of consola- 
 tion and pleasure were closed to him, from this exercise 
 of his mind ; and he ventures to hope that these hours 
 of sickness may be not altogether unprofitable to persons 
 in perfect health. 
 
 Rome, 
 February 21, 1829.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL; 
 
 OK, 
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF A PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 DIALOGUE THE FIRST. 
 
 THE VISION. 
 
 I PASSED the autumn and the early winter of the years 
 18 and 18 at Rome. The society was, as is usual 
 in that metropolis of the old Christian world, numerous 
 and diversified. In it there were found many intel- 
 lectual foreigners and amongst them some distinguished 
 Britons, who had a higher object in making this city 
 their residence than mere idleness or vague curiosity. 
 Amongst these my countrymen, there were two gentle- 
 men with whom I formed a particular intimacy and 
 who were my frequent companions in the visits which 
 I made to the monuments of the grandeur of the old 
 Romans and to the masterpieces of ancient and modern 
 art. One of them I shall call Ambrosio : he was a man 
 of highly cultivated taste, great classical erudition, and 
 minute historical knowledge. In religion he was of 
 the Roman Catholic persuasion ; but a Catholic of the 
 most liberal school, who in another age might have 
 been secretary to Gauganelli. His views upon the 
 subjects of politics and religion were enlarged; but 
 his leaning was rather to the power of a single magis- 
 trate than to the authority of a democracy or even of an
 
 16 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 oligarchy. The other friend, whom I shall call Onu- 
 phrio, was a man of a very different character. Belong- 
 ing to the English aristocracy, he had some of the 
 prejudices usually attached to birth and rank ; but his 
 manners were gentle, his temper good, and his disposi- 
 tion amiable. Having been partly educated at a north- 
 ern university in Britain, he had adopted views in 
 religion which went even beyond toleration and which 
 might be regarded as entering the verge of scepticism. 
 For a patrician he was very liberal in his political 
 views. His imagination was poetical and discursive, 
 his taste good and his tact extremely fine, so exquisite, 
 indeed, that it sometimes approached to morbid sensi- 
 bility, and disgusted him with slight defects and made 
 him keenly sensible of small perfections to which 
 common minds would have been indifferent. 
 
 In the beginning of October on a very fine afternoon 
 I drove with these two friends to the Colosseum, a 
 monument which, for the hundredth time even, I had 
 viewed with a new admiration ; my friends partook of 
 my sentiments. I shall give the conversation which 
 occurred there in their own words. Onuphrio said, 
 " How impressive are those ruins ! what a character 
 do they give us of the ancient Romans, what magnifi- 
 cence of design, what grandeur of execution ! Had we 
 not historical documents to inform us of the period 
 when this structure was raised and of the purposes for 
 which it was designed, it might be imagined the work 
 of a race of giants, a Council Chamber for those Titans 
 fabled to have warred against the gods of the pagan 
 mythology. The size of the masses of travertine of 
 which it is composed is in harmony with the immense 
 magnitude of the building. It is hardly to be wondered
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 17 
 
 at that a people which constructed such works for 
 their daily sports, for their usual amusements, should 
 have possessed strength, enduring energy, and perse- 
 verance sufficient to enable them to conquer the world. 
 They appear always to have formed their plans and 
 made their combinations as if their power were beyond 
 the reach of chance, independent of the influence of time, 
 and founded for unlimited duration for eternity ! " 
 
 Ambrosio took up the discourse of Onuphrio, and 
 said, " The aspect of this wonderful heap of ruins is so 
 picturesque that it is impossible to regret its decay ; 
 and at this season of the year the colours of the 
 vegetation are in harmony with those of the falling 
 ruins, and how perfectly the whole landscape is in 
 tone ! The remains of the palace of the Caesars and of 
 the golden halls of Nero appear in the distance, their 
 grey and tottering turrets and their moss-stained arches 
 reposing, as it were, upon the decaying vegetation: 
 and there is nothing that marks the existence of life 
 except the few pious devotees, who wander from station 
 to station in the arena below, kneeling before the cross, 
 and demonstrating the triumph of a religion, which 
 received in this very spot in the early period of its 
 existence one of its most severe persecutions, and which, 
 nevertheless, has preserved what remains of that build- 
 ing, where attempts were made to stifle it almost at its 
 birth ; for, without the influence of Christianity, these 
 majestic ruins would have been dispersed or levelled to 
 the dust. Plundered of their lead and iron by the 
 barbarians, Goths, and Vandals, and robbed even of 
 their stones by Roman princes, the Barberini, they owe 
 what remains of their relics to the sanctifying influence 
 of that faith which has preserved for the world all
 
 18 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 that was worth preserving, not merely arts and literature 
 bat likewise that which constitutes the progressive 
 nature of intellect and the institutions which afford to 
 us happiness in this world and hopes of a blessed 
 immortality in the next. And, being of the faith of 
 Rome, I may say, that the preservation of this pile by 
 the sanctifying effect of a few crosses planted round it, 
 is almost a miraculous event. And what a contrast 
 the present application of this building, connected with 
 holy feelings and exalted hopes, is to that of the ancient 
 one, when it was used for exhibiting to the Roman 
 people the destruction of men by wild beasts, or of 
 men, more savage than wild beasts, by each other, to 
 gratify a horrible appetite for cruelty, founded upon 
 a still more detestable lust, that of universal domina- 
 tion ! And who would have supposed, in the time of 
 Titus, that a faith, despised in its insignificant origin, 
 and persecuted from the supposed obscurity of its 
 founder and its principles, should have reared a dome 
 to the memory of one of its humblest teachers, more 
 glorious than was ever framed for Jupiter or Apollo in 
 the ancient world, and have preserved even the ruins 
 of the temples of the pagan deities, and have burst 
 forth in splendour and majesty, consecrating truth 
 amidst the shrines of error, employing the idols of the 
 Roman superstition for the most holy purposes and 
 rising a bright and constant light amidst the dark and 
 starless night which followed the destruction of the 
 Roman empire 1 " 
 
 Onuphrio now resumed the discourse. He said. "1 
 have not the same exalted views on the subject which 
 our friend Ambrosio has so eloquently expressed. Some 
 little of the perfect state in which these ruins exist may
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 19 
 
 have been owing to causes which he has described ; but 
 these causes have only lately begun to operate, and the 
 mischief was done before Christianity was established 
 at Rome. Feeling differently on these subjects. I 
 admire this venerable ruin rather as a record of the 
 destruction of the power of the greatest people that 
 ever existed, than as a proof of the triumph of Christi- 
 anity ; and I am carried forward in melancholy antici- 
 pation to the period when even the magnificent dome 
 of St. Peter's will be in a similar state to that in which 
 the Colosaeum now is, and when its ruins may be 
 preserved by the sanctifying influence of some new and 
 unknown faith ; when, perhaps, the statue of Jupiter, 
 which at present receives the kiss of the devotee, as 
 the image of St. Peter, may be employed for another 
 holy use, as the personification of a future saint or 
 divinity ; and when the monuments of the papal magni- 
 ficence shall be mixed with the same dust as that 
 which now covers the tombs of the Caesars. Such, I 
 am sorry to say, is the general history of all the works 
 and institutions belonging to humanity. They rise, 
 flourish, and then decay and fall ; and the period of 
 their decline is generally proportional to that of their 
 elevation. In ancient Thebes or Memphis the peculiar 
 genius of the people has left us monuments from which 
 we can judge of their arts, though we cannot understand 
 the nature of their superstitions. Of Babylon and of 
 Troy the remains are almost extinct; and what we 
 know of these famous cities is almost entirely derived 
 from literary records. Ancient Greece and Rome we 
 view in the few remains of their monuments ; raid the 
 time will arrive when modern Rome shall be what 
 ancient Rome now is ; and ancient Rome and Athens
 
 20 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 will be what Tyre or Carthage now are, known only 
 by coloured dust in the desert, or coloured sand, con- 
 taining the fragments of bricks or glass, washed up by 
 the wave of a stormy sea. I might pursue these 
 thoughts still further, and show that the wood of the 
 cross, or the bronze of the statue, decay as quickly as 
 if they had not been sanctified ; and I think I could 
 show that their influence is owing to the imagination, 
 which, when infinite time is considered, or the course 
 of ages even, is null and its effect imperceptible ; and 
 similar results occur, whether the faith be that of 
 Osiris, of Jupiter, of Jehovah, or of Jesus." 
 
 To this Ambrosio replied, his countenance and the 
 tones of his voice expressing some emotion : ''I do not 
 think, Onuphrio, that you consider this question with 
 your usual sagacity or acuteness ; indeed, I never hear 
 you on the subject of religion without pain and without 
 a feeling of regret that you have not applied your 
 powerful understanding to a more minute and correct 
 examination of the evidences of revealed religion. You 
 would then, I think, have seen, in the origin, progress, 
 elevation, decline and fall of the empires of antiquity, 
 proofs that they were intended for a definite end in the 
 scheme of human redemption ; you would have found 
 prophecies which have been amply verified ; and the 
 foundation or the ruin of a kingdom, which appears in 
 civil history so great an event, in the history of man, 
 in his religious institutions, as comparatively of small 
 moment ; you would have found the establishment of 
 the worship of one God amongst a despised and con- 
 temned people as the most important circumstance in 
 the history of the early world ; you would have found 
 the Christian dispensation naturally arising out of the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 21 
 
 Jewish, and the doctrines of the pagan nations all 
 preparatory to the triumph and final establishment of 
 a creed fitted for the most enlightened state of the 
 human mind and equally adapted to every climate and 
 every people." 
 
 To this animated appeal of Ambrosio, Onuphrio 
 replied in the most tranquil manner and with the air of 
 an unmoved philosopher : " You mistake me, Ambrosio, 
 if you consider me as hostile to Christianity. I am not 
 of the school of the French Encyclopaedists, or of the 
 English infidels. I consider religion as essential to 
 man, and belonging to the human mind in the same 
 manner as instincts belong to the brute creation, a light, 
 if you please of revelation to guide him through the 
 darkness of this life, and to keep alive his undying 
 hope of immortality : but pardon me if I consider this 
 instinct as equally useful in all its different forms, and 
 still a divine light through whatever medium or cloud of 
 human passion or prejudice it passes. I reverence it 
 in the followers of Brahman, in the disciple of Mahomet, 
 and I wonder at in all the variety of forms it adopts in 
 the Christian world. You must not be angry with me 
 that I do not allow infallibility to your Church, having 
 been myself brought up by Protestant parents, who 
 were rigidly attached to the doctrines of Calvin." 
 
 I saw Ambrosio's countenance kindle at Onuphrio's 
 explanation of his opinions, and he appeared to be 
 meditating an angry reply. I endeavoured to change 
 the conversation to the state of the Colosseum, with 
 which it had begun. " These ruins," I said, " as you 
 have both observed, are highly impressive ; yet when 
 I saw them six years ago they had a stronger effect on 
 my imagination ; whether it was the charm of novelty,
 
 22 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 or that my mind was fresher, or that the circumstances 
 under which I saw them were peculiar, I know not, 
 but probably all these causes operated in affecting my 
 mind. It was a still and beautiful evening in the end 
 of May ; the last sunbeams were dying away in the 
 western sky and the first moonbeams shining in the 
 eastern ; the bright orange tints lighted up the ruins 
 and as it were kindled the snows that still remained 
 on the distant Apennines, which were visible from 
 the highest accessible part of the amphitheatre. In 
 this glow of colouring, the green of advanced spring 
 softened the grey and yellow tints of the decaying 
 stones, and as the lights gradually became fainter, 
 the masses appeared grander and more gigantic ; and 
 when the twilight had entirely disappeared, the con- 
 trast of light and shade in the beams of the full moon 
 amd beneath a sky of the brightest sapphire, but so 
 highly illuminated that only Jupiter and a few stars 
 of the first magnitude were visible, gave a solemnity 
 and magnificence to the scene which awakened the 
 highest degree of that emotion which is so properly 
 termed the sublime. The beauty and the permanency 
 of the heavens and the principle of conservation be- 
 longing to the system of the universe, the works of the 
 Eternal and Divine Architect, were finely opposed to 
 the perishing and degraded works of man iii his most 
 active and powerful state. And at this moment so 
 humble appeared to me the condition of the most 
 exalted beings belonging to the earth, so feeble their 
 combinations, so minute the point of space, and so 
 limited the period of time in which they act, that I 
 could hardly avoid comparing the generations of man, 
 and the effects of his genius and power, to the swarms
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 23 
 
 of luceoli or fire-flies which were dancing around me 
 and that appeared flitting and sparkling amidst the 
 gloom and darkness of the ruins, but which were no 
 longer visible when they rose above the horizon, their 
 feeble light being lost and utterly obscured in the 
 brightness of the moonbeams in the heavens." 
 
 Onuphrio said: "I am not sorry that you have 
 changed the conversation. You have given us the 
 history of a most interesting recollection and well 
 expressed a solemn though humiliating feeling. In 
 such moments and among such scenes it is impossible 
 not to be struck with the nothingness of human glory 
 and the transiency of human works. This, one of the 
 greatest monuments on the face of the earth, was 
 raised by a people, then its masters, only seventeen 
 centuries ago; in a few ages more it will be but as 
 dust, and of all the testimonials of the vanity or power 
 of man, whether raised to immortalise his name, or to 
 contain his decaying bones without a name, no one is 
 known to have a duration beyond what is measured 
 by the existence of a hundred generations ; and it is 
 only to multiply centuple for instance the period of 
 time, and the memorials of a village and the monu- 
 ments of a country churchyard may be compared with 
 those of an empire and the remains of the world." 
 
 Ambrosio. to whom the conversation seemed dis- 
 agreeable, put us in mind of an engagement we had 
 made to spend the evening at the conversazione of a 
 celebrated lady, and proposed to call the carriage. 
 The reflections which the conversation aiid the scene 
 had left in my mind little disposed me for general 
 society. I requested them to keep their engagement, 
 and said I was resolved to spend an hour nniidsfc the
 
 24 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 solitude of the ruins, and desired them to send back 
 the carriage for me. They left me, expressing a hope 
 that my poetical or melancholy fancy might not be 
 the occasion of a cold, and wished me the company of 
 some of the spectres of the ancient Romans. 
 
 When I was left alone, I seated myself in the 
 moonshine, on one of the steps leading to the seats 
 supposed to have been occupied by the patricians in 
 the Colosseum at the time of the public games. The 
 train of ideas in which I had indulged before my 
 friends left me continued to flow with a vividness and 
 force increased by the stillness and solitude of the 
 scene ; and the full moon has always a peculiar effect 
 on these moods of feeling in my mind, giving to them 
 a wildness and a kind of indefinite sensation, such as 
 I suppose belong at all times to the true poetical tern- 
 peranient. It must be so, I thought to myself ; no 
 new city will rise again out of the double ruins of 
 this; no new empire will be founded upon these 
 colossal remains of that of the old Romans. The 
 world, like the individual, flourishes in youth, rises to 
 strength in manhood, falls into decay in age ; and the 
 ruins of an empire are like the decrepit frame of an 
 individual, except that they have some tints of beauty 
 which nature bestows upon them. The sun of civili- 
 sation arose in the East, advanced towards the "West, 
 and is now at its meridian ; in a few centuries more 
 it will probably be seen sinking below the horizon 
 even in the new world, and there will be left darkness 
 only where there is a bright light, deserts of sand 
 where there were populous cities, and stagnant mo- 
 rasses where the green meadow or the bright corn- 
 field once appeared. I called up images of this kind
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 25 
 
 ' in my imagination. " Time," I said, " which purifies, 
 and as it were sanctifies the mind, destroys and brings 
 into utter decay the body ; and, even in nature, its 
 influence seems always degrading. She is represented 
 by the poets as eternal in her youth, but amongst these 
 ruins she appears to me eternal in her age, and here no 
 traces of renovation appear in the ancient of days." I 
 had scarcely concluded this ideal sentence when my 
 reverie became deeper, the ruins surrounding me 
 appeared to vanish from my sight, the light of the 
 moon became more intense, and the orb itself seemed 
 to expand in a flood of splendour. At the same time 
 that my visual organs appeared so singularly affected, 
 the most melodious sounds filled my ear, softer yet at 
 the same time deeper and fuller than I had ever heard 
 in the most harmonious and perfect concert. It appeared 
 to me that I had entered a new state of existence, and 
 I was so perfectly lost in the new kind of sensation 
 which I experienced that I had no recollections and 
 no perceptions of identity. On a sudden the music 
 ceased, but the brilliant light still continued to sur- 
 round me, and I heard a low but extremely distinct 
 and sweet voice, which appeared to issue from the 
 centre of it. The sounds were at first musical like 
 those of a harp, but they soon became articulate, as if 
 a prelude to some piece of sublime poetical com- 
 position. " Tou, like all your brethren," said the 
 
 , voice, " are entirely ignorant of every thing belonging 
 to yourselves, the world you inhabit, your future 
 destinies, and the scheme of the universe ; and yet 
 you have the folly to believe you are acquainted with 
 the past, the present, and the future. I am an intel- 
 ligence somewhat superior to you, though there are
 
 26 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 millions of beings as much above me in power and in 
 intellect as man is above the meanest and weakest 
 reptile that crawls beneath his feet ; yet something I 
 can teach you : yield your mind wholly to the influence 
 which I shall exert upon it, anoVyou shall be undeceived 
 in your views of the history of the world, and of the 
 system you inhabit." At this moment the bright light 
 disappeared, the sweet and harmonious voice, which 
 was the only proof of the presence of a superior in- 
 telligence, ceased ; I was in utter darkness and silence, 
 and seemed to myself to be carried rapidly upon a 
 stream of air, without any other sensation than that 
 of moving quickly through space. Whilst I was still 
 in motion, a dim and hazy light, which seemed like 
 that of twilight in a rainy morning, broke upon my 
 sight, and gradually a country displayed itself to my 
 view covered with forests and marshes. I saw wild 
 animals grazing in large savannahs, and carnivorous 
 beasts, such as lions and tigers, occasionally disturbing 
 and destroying them ; I saw naked savages feeding 
 upon wild fruits, or devouring shell-fish, or fighting 
 with clubs for the remains of a whale which had been 
 thrown upon the shore. I observed that they had no 
 habitations, that they concealed themselves in caves, 
 or under the shelter of palm trees, and that the only 
 delicious food which nature seemed to have given to 
 them was the date and the cocoa-nut, and these were in 
 very small quantities and the object of contention. I 
 saw that some few of these wretched human beiiigs 
 that inhabited the wide waste before uiy eyes, had 
 weapons pointed with flint or fish-bone, which they 
 made use of for destroying birds, quadrupeds, or fishes, 
 that they fed upon raw; but their greatest delicacy
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 27 
 
 appeared to be a maggot or worm, which they sought 
 for with great perseverance in the buds of the palm. 
 When I had cast my eyes on the varied features of this 
 melancholy scene, which was now lighted by a rising 
 sun, I heard again the same voice which had astonished 
 me in the Colosseum, and which said, "See the birth 
 of Time ! Look at man in his newly created state, full 
 of youth and vigour. Do you see aught in this state to 
 admire or envy ? " As the last words fell on my ear, 
 I was again, as before, rapidly put in motion, and I 
 seemed again resistless to be harried upon a stream of 
 air, and again in perfect darkness. In a moment, an 
 indistinct light again appeared before my eyes and a 
 country opened upon my view which appeared partly 
 wild and partly cultivated ; there were fewer woods 
 and morasses than in the scene which I had just before 
 seen ; I beheld men who were covered with the skins 
 of animals, and who were driving cattle to enclosed 
 pastures ; I saw others who were reaping and collecting 
 corn, others who were making it into bread ; I saw 
 cottages furnished with many of the conveniences of 
 life, and a people in that state of agricultural and 
 pastoral improvement which has been imagined by the 
 poets as belonging to the golden age. The same voice, 
 which I shall call that of the Genius, said, "Look at 
 these groups of men who are escaped from the state of 
 infancy : they owe their improvement to a few superior 
 minds still amongst them. That aged man whom you 
 see with a crowd around him taught them to build 
 cottages ; from that other they learnt to domesticate 
 cattle ; from others to collect and sow corn and seeds 
 of fruit. And these arts will never be lost ; another 
 generation will see them more perfect ; the houses, in a
 
 28 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 century more, will be larger and more convenient; 
 the flocks of cattle more numerous ; the corn-fields 
 more extensive ; the morasses will be drained, the 
 number of fruit-trees increased. You shall be shown 
 other visions of the passages of time, but as you are 
 carried along the stream which flows from the period 
 of creation to the present moment, I shall only arrest 
 your transit to make you observe some circumstances 
 which will demonstrate the truths I wish you to know, 
 and which will explain to you the little it is permitted 
 me to understand of the scheme of the universe." I 
 again found myself in darkness and in motion, and 
 I was again arrested by the opening of a new scene 
 upon my eyes. I shall describe this scene and the 
 others in the succession in which they appeared before 
 me, and the observations by which they were accom- 
 panied in the voice of the wonderful being who 
 apeared as my intellectual guide. In the scene which 
 followed that of the agricultural or pastoral people, I 
 saw a great extent of cultivated plains, large cities on 
 the sea-shore, palaces forums and temples ornament- 
 ing them; men associated in groups, mounted on 
 horses, and performing military exercises; galleys 
 moved by oars on the ocean ; roads intersecting 
 the country covered with travellers and containing 
 carriages moved by men or horses. The Genius now- 
 said, " You see the early state of civilisation of man ; 
 the cottages of the last race you beheld have become 
 improved into stately dwellings, palaces, and temples, 
 in which use is combined with ornament. The few 
 men to whom, as I said before, the foundations of 
 these improvements were owing, have had divine 
 honours paid to their memory. But look at the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 29 
 
 instruments belonging to this generation, and you will 
 find that they are only of brass. You see men who are 
 talking to crowds around them, and others who are 
 apparently amusing listening groups by a kind of song 
 or recitation ; these are the earliest bards and orators ; 
 but all their signs of thought are oral, for written 
 language does not yet exist." The next scene which 
 appeared was one of varied business and imagery. I 
 saw a man, who bore in his hands the same instru- 
 ments as our modern smiths, presenting a vase, which 
 appeared to be made of iron, amidst the acclamations 
 of an assembled multitude engaged in triumphal pro- 
 cession before the altars dignified by the name of 
 Apollo at Delphi ; and I saw in the same place men 
 who carried rolls of papyrus in their hands and wrote 
 upon them with reeds containing ink made from the 
 soot of wood mixed with a solution of glue. " See," the 
 Genius said, " an immense change produced in the con- 
 dition of society by the two arts of which you here see 
 the origin ; the one, that of rendering iron malleable, 
 which is owing to a single individual, an obscure 
 Greek; the other, that of making thought permanent 
 in written characters, an art which has gradually 
 arisen from the hieroglyphics which you may observe 
 on yonder pyramids. You will now see human 
 life more replete with power and activity." Again, 
 another scene broke upon my vision. I saw the 
 bronze instruments, which had belonged to the former 
 state of society, thrown away; malleable iron con- 
 verted into hard steel, this steel applied to a thousand 
 purposes of civilised life; I saw bands of men who 
 made use of it for defensive armour and for offensive 
 weapons ; I saw these iron-clad men, in small numbers
 
 30 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 subduing thousands of savages, and establishing 
 amongst them their arts and institutions ; I saw a few 
 men on the eastern shores of Europe, resisting, with 
 the same materials, the united forces of Asia ; I saw a 
 chosen band die in defence of their country, destroyed 
 by an army a thousand times as numerous ; and I saw 
 this same army, in its turn, caused to disappear. 
 and destroyed or driven from the shores of Europe 
 by the brethren of that baud of martyred patriots ; 
 I saw bodies of these men traversing the sea, 
 founding colonies, building cities, and wherever 
 they established themselves, carrying with them 
 their peculiar arts. Towns and temples arose 
 containing schools, and libraries filled with the 
 rolls of the papyrus. The same steel, such a 
 tremendous instrument of power in the hands of the 
 warrior, I saw applied, by the genius of the artist, to 
 strike forms even more perfect than those of life out 
 of the rude marble ; and I eaw the walls of the palaces 
 and temples covered with pictures, in which historical 
 events were portrayed with the truth of nature and the 
 poetry of mind. The voice now awakened my atten- 
 tion by saying, " You have now before you the vision 
 of that state of society which is an object of admira- 
 tion to the youth of modern times, and the recollec- 
 tions of which, and the precepts founded on these 
 recollections, constitute an important part of your 
 education. Your maxims of war and policy, your taste 
 in letters and the arts, are derived from models left 
 by that people, or by their immediate imitators, whom 
 you shall now see." I opened my eyes, and recognised 
 the very spot in which I was sitting when the vision 
 commenced. I was on the top of an arcade under a
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 31 
 
 silken canopy, looking down upon the tens of thousands 
 of people who were crowded in the seats of the 
 Colosseum, ornamented with all the spoils that the 
 wealth of a world can give ; I saw in the arena below 
 animals of the most extraordinary kind, and which 
 have rarely been seen living in modern Europe the 
 giraffe, the zebra, the rhinoceros, and the ostrich from 
 the deserts of Africa beyond the Niger, the hippo- 
 potamus from the Upper Nile, and the royal tiger and 
 the gnu from the banks of the Ganges. Looking over 
 Rome, which, in its majesty of palaces and temples, 
 and in its colossal aqueducts bringing water even from 
 the snows of the distant Apennines, seemed more like 
 the creation of a supernatural power than the work of 
 human hands ; looking over Rome to the distant land- 
 scape, I saw the whole face, as it were, of the ancient 
 world adorned with miniature images of this splendid 
 metropolis. Where the Roman conquered, there he 
 civilised; where he carried his arms, there he fixed 
 likewise his household gods ; and from the deserts of 
 Arabia to the mountains of Caledonia there appeared 
 but one people, having the same arts, language, and 
 letters all of Grecian origin. I looked again, and 
 saw an entire change in the brilliant aspect of 'iiis 
 Roman world the people of conquerors and heroes 
 was no longer visible ; the cities were filled with an 
 idle and luxurious population ; those farms which had 
 been cultivated by warriors, who left the plough to take 
 the command of armies, were now in the hands of 
 slaves ; and the militia of freemen were supplanted by 
 bands of mercenaries, who sold the empire to the 
 highest bidder, i saw immense masses of warriors 
 collecting in the north and east, carrying with them
 
 32 CONSOLATIONS IN TBAVEL. 
 
 no other proofs of cultivation but their horses and steel 
 arms ; I saw these savages everywhere attacking this 
 mighty empire, plundering cities, destroying the monu- 
 ments of arts and literature, and, like wild beasts 
 devouring a noble animal, tearing into pieces and 
 destroying the Roman power. Ruin, desolation, am! 
 darkness were before me, and I closed my eyes to avoid 
 the melancholy scene. "See," said the G-enius, "the 
 melancholy termination of a power believed by its 
 founders invincible, and intended to be eternal. But 
 you will find, though the glory and greatness belonging 
 to its military genius have passed away, yet those 
 belonging to the arts and institutions, by which it 
 adorned and dignified life, will again arise in another 
 state of society." I opened my eyes again, and I saw 
 Italy recovering from her desolation towns arising 
 with governments almost upon the model of ancient 
 Athens and Rome, and these different small states 
 rivals in arts and arms ; I saw the remains of libraries, 
 which had been preserved in monasteries and churches 
 by a holy influence which even the Goth and Vandal 
 respected, again opened to the people ; I saw Rome 
 rising from her ashes, the fragments of statues found 
 amidst the ruins of her palaces and imperial villas 
 becoming the models for the regeneration of art ; I 
 saw magnificent temples raised in this city become the 
 metropolis of a new and Christian world, and orna- 
 mented with the most brilliant masterpieces of the arts 
 of design ; I saw a Tuscan city, as it were, contending 
 with Rome for pre-eminence in the productions of 
 genius, and the spirit awakened in Italy spreading its 
 influence from the South to the North. " Now," the 
 Genius said, " society has taken its modern and
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 33 
 
 permanent aspect. Consider for a moment its relations 
 to letters and to arms as contrasted with those of the 
 ancient world." I looked, and saw, that in the place 
 of the rolls of papyrus, libraries were now filled with 
 books. " Behold," the Genius said, " the printing- 
 press; by the invention of Faust the productions of 
 genius are, as it were, made imperishable, capable of 
 indefinite multiplication, and rendered an unalienable 
 heritage of the human mind. By this art, apparently 
 so humble, the progress of society is secured, and man 
 is spared the humiliation of witnessing again scenes 
 like those which followed the destruction of the Roman 
 Empire. Now look to the warriors of modern times ; 
 you see the spear, the javelin, the shield, and the 
 cuirass are changed for the musket and the light 
 artillery. The German monk who discovered gun- 
 powder did not meanly affect the destinies of mankind ; 
 wars are become less bloody by becoming less per- 
 sonal; mere brutal strength is rendered of com- 
 paratively little avail ; all the resources of civilisation 
 are required to maintain and move a large army ; 
 wealth, ingenuity, and perseverance become the prin- 
 cipal elements of success; civilised man is rendered 
 in consequence infinitely superior to the savage, and 
 gunpowder gives permanence to his triumph, and 
 secures the cultivated nations from ever being again 
 overrun by the inroads of millions of barbarians. 
 There is so much identity of feature in the character 
 of the two or three centuries that are just passed, that 
 I wish you only to take a very transient view of the 
 political and military events belonging to them. 5Tou 
 will find attempts made by the chiefs of certain great 
 nations to acquire predominance and empire ; you will 
 B 203
 
 34 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 see those attempts, after being partially successful 
 resisted by other nations, and the balance of power, 
 apparently for a moment broken, again restored. 
 Amongst the rival nations that may be considered as 
 forming the republic of modern Europe, you will see 
 one pre-eminent for her maritime strength and colonial 
 and commercial enterprise, and you will find she retains 
 her superiority only because it is favourable to the 
 liberty of mankind. But you must not yet suffer the 
 vision of modern Europe to pass from your eyes with- 
 out viewing some other results of the efforts of men of 
 genius, which, like those of gunpowder and the press, 
 illustrate the times to which they belong, and form 
 brilliant epochs in the history of the world. If you 
 look back into the schools of regenerated Italy, you 
 will see in them the works of the Greek masters of 
 philosophy ; and if you attend to the science taught 
 in them, you will find it vague, obscure, and full of 
 erroneous notions. You will find in this early period 
 of improvement branches of philosophy even applied 
 to purposes of delusion ; the most sublime of the 
 departments of human knowledge astronomy abused 
 by impostors, who from the aspect of the planetary 
 world pretended to predict the fortunes and destinies 
 of individuals. You will see in the laboratories al- 
 chemists searching for a universal medicine, an elixir 
 of life, and for the philosopher's stone, or a method of 
 converting all metals into gold; but unexpected and 
 useful discoveries you will find, even in this age, arise 
 amidst the clouds of deception and the smoke of the 
 furnace. Delusion and error vanish and pass away, 
 and truths seized upon by a few superior men become 
 permanent, and the property of an enlightening world.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TKAVEL. 35 
 
 Amongst the personages who belong to this early 
 period, there are two whom I must request you to 
 notice one an Englishman, who pointed out the paths 
 to the discovery of scientific truths, and the other a 
 Tuscan, who afforded the happiest experimental illus- 
 trations of the speculative views of his brother in 
 science. Tou will see academies formed a century 
 later in Italy, France, and Britain, in which the sciences 
 are enlarged by new and varied experiments, and the 
 true system of the universe developed by an illustrious 
 Englishman taught and explained. The practical re- 
 sults of the progress of physics, chemistry, and me- 
 chanics, are of the most marvellous kind, and to make 
 them all distinct would require a comparison of ancient 
 and modern states : ships that were moved by human 
 labour in the ancient world are transported by the winds ; 
 and a piece of steel, touched by the magnet, points to 
 the mariner his unerring course from the old to the new 
 world ; and by the exertions of one man of genius, aided 
 by the resources of chemistry, a power, which by the old 
 philosophers could hardly have been imagined, has been 
 generated and applied to almost all the machinery of 
 active life ; the steam-engine performs not only the 
 labour of horses, but of man, by combinations which 
 appear almost possessed of intelligence ; waggons are 
 moved by it, constructions made, vessels caused to per- 
 form voyages in opposition to wind and tide, and a 
 power placed in human hands which seems almost un- 
 limited. To these novel and still extending improve- 
 ments may be added others, which, though of a secon- 
 dary kind, yet materially affect the comforts of life, 
 the collecting from fossil materials the elements of 
 combustion, and applying them so as to illuminate, by
 
 db CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 a single operation, houses, streets, aud even cities. If 
 you look to the results of chemical arts you will find 
 new substances of the most extraordinary nature 
 applied to various novel purposes ; you will find a few 
 experiments in electricity leading to the marvellous 
 result of disarming the thunder-cloud of its terrors, 
 and you will see new instruments created by human 
 ingenuity, possessing the same powers as the electrical 
 organs of living animals. To whatever part of the 
 vision of modern times you cast your eyes you will find 
 marks of superiority and improvement, and I wish u 
 impress upon you the conviction that the results of in- 
 tellectual labour or of scientific genius are permanent 
 and incapable of being lost. Monarchs change their 
 plans, governments their objects, a fleet or an army 
 effect their purpose and then pass away ; but a piece 
 of steel touched by the magnet preserves its character 
 for ever, and secures to man the dominion of the track- 
 less ocean. A new period of society may send armies 
 from the shores of the Baltic to those of the Euxiue, 
 and the empire of the followers of Mahomet may be 
 broken in pieces by a northern people, and the dominion 
 of the Britons in Asia may share the fate of that of 
 Tamerlane or Zengiskhan; but the steam -boat which 
 ascends the Delaware or the St. Lawrence will be con- 
 tinued to be used, and will carry the civilisation of an 
 improved people into the deserts of Xorth America and 
 into the wilds of Canada. In the common history of 
 the world, as compiled by authors in general, almost 
 all the great changes of nations are confounded with 
 changes in their dynasties, and events are usually re- 
 ferred either to sovereigns, chiefs, heroes, or their 
 armies, which do, in fact, originate from entirely dif-
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 37 
 
 ferent causes, either of an intellectual or moral nature. 
 Governments depend far more than is generally sup- 
 posed upon the opinion of the people and the spirit of 
 the age and nation. It sometimes happens that a 
 gigantic mind possesses supreme power and rises 
 superior to the age in which he is born, such was 
 Alfred in England and Peter in Russia ; but such in- 
 stances are very rare; and, in general, it is neither 
 amongst sovereigns nor the higher classes of society 
 that the great improvers or benefactors of mankind are 
 to be found. The works of the most illustrious names 
 were little valued at the times when they were pro- 
 duced, and their authors either despised or neglected ; 
 and great, indeed, must have been the pure and ab- 
 stract pleasure resulting from the exertion of intel- 
 lectual superiority and the discovery of truth and the 
 bestowing benefits and blessings upon society, which 
 induced men to sacrifice all their common enjoyments 
 and all their privileges as citizens to these exertions. 
 Aiiaxagoras, Archimedes, Roger Bacon, Galileo Gal- 
 ilei, in their deaths or their imprisonments, offer 
 instances of this kind, and nothing can be more strik- 
 ing than what appears to have been the ingratitude of 
 men towards their greatest benefactors ; but hereafter, 
 when yo*u understand more of the scheme of the uni- 
 verse, you will see the cause and the effect of this, and 
 you will find the whole system governed by principles 
 of immutable justice. I have said that in the progress 
 of society all great and real improvements are per- 
 petuated; the same corn which four thousand years 
 ago was raised from an improved grass by an inventor 
 worshipped for two thousand years in the ancient world 
 under the name of Ceres, still forms the principal food
 
 38 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 of mankind ; and the potato, perhaps the greatest 
 benefit that the Old has derived from the New World, 
 is spreading over Europe, and will continue to nourish an 
 extensive population when the name of the race by whom 
 it was first cultivated in South America is forgotten. 
 
 " I will now call your attention to some remarkable 
 laws belonging to the history of society, and from the 
 consideration of which you will be able gradually to 
 develop the higher and more exalted principles of being. 
 There appears nothing more accidental than the sex of 
 an infant, yet take any great city or any province and 
 you will find that the relations of males and females 
 are unalterable. Again, a part of the pure air of the 
 atmosphere is continually consumed in combustion and 
 respiration ; living vegetables emit this principle dur- 
 ing their growth; nothing appears more accidental 
 tli an the proportion of vegetable to animal life on the 
 surface of the earth, yet they are perfectly equivalent, 
 and the balance of the sexes, like the constitution of 
 the atmosphere, depends upon the principles of an un- 
 erring intelligence. Tou saw in the decline of the 
 Roman empire a people enfeebled by luxury, worn out 
 by excess, overrun by rude warriors; you saw the 
 giants of the North and East mixing with the pigmies 
 of the South and West. An empire was destroyed, but 
 the seeds of moral and physical improvement in the 
 new race were sown ; the new population resulting from 
 the alliances of the men of the North with the women 
 of the South was more vigorous, more full of physical 
 power, and more capable of intellectual exertion than 
 their apparently ill-suited progenitors ; and the moral 
 effects or final causes of the migration of races, the 
 plans of conquest and ambition which have led to
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 39 
 
 revolutions and changes of kingdoms designed by man 
 for such different objects have been the same in their 
 ultimate results that of improving by mixture the 
 different families of men. An Alaric or an Attila, who 
 inarches with legions of barbarians for some gross view 
 of plunder or ambition, is an instrument of divine 
 power to effect a purpose of which he is wholly uncon- 
 scious he is carrying a strong race to improve a weak 
 one, and giving energy to a debilitated population ; 
 and the deserts he makes in his passage will become in 
 another age cultivated fields, and the solitude he pro- 
 duces will be succeeded by a powerful and healthy 
 population. The results of these events in the moral 
 and political world may be compared to those produced 
 in the vegetable kingdom by the storms and heavy 
 gales so usual at the vernal equinox, the time of the 
 formation of the seed; the pollen or farina of one 
 flower is thrown upon the pistil of another, and the 
 crossing of varieties of plants so essential to the per- 
 fection of the vegetable world produced. In man 
 moral causes and physical ones modify each other ; the 
 transmission of hereditary qualities to offspring is dis- 
 tinct in the animal world, and in the case of disposition 
 to disease it is sufficiently obvious in the human being. 
 But it is likewise a general principle that powers or 
 habits acquired by cultivation are transmitted to the 
 next generation and exalted or perpetuated ; the history 
 of particular races of men affords distinct proofs of 
 this. The Caucasian stock has always preserved its 
 superiority, whilst the negro or flat-nosed race has 
 always been marked for want of intellectual power and 
 capacity for the arts of life. This last race, in fact, 
 has never been cultivated, and a hundred generations,
 
 40 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 successively improved, would be required to bring it to 
 the state in which the Caucasian race was at the time 
 of the formation of the Greek republics. The principle 
 of the improvement of the character of races by the 
 transmission of hereditary qualities has not escaped the 
 observations of the legislators of the ancient people. 
 By the divine law of Moses the Israelites were enjoined 
 to preserve the purity of their blood, and there was no 
 higher crime than that of forming alliances with the 
 idolatrous nations surrounding them. The Brahmins of 
 Hindostan have established upon the same principle 
 the law of caste, by which certain professions were 
 made hereditary. In this warm climate, where labour 
 is so oppressive, to secure perfection in any series of 
 operations it seems essential to strengthen the powers 
 by the forces acquired from this principle of here- 
 ditary descent. It will at first perhaps strike your 
 mind that the mixing or blending of races is in direct 
 opposition to this principle of perfection ; but here I 
 must require you to pause and consider the nature of 
 the qualities belonging to the human being. Excess 
 of a particular power, which in itself is a perfection, 
 becomes a defect; the organs of touch may be so 
 refined as to show a diseased sensibility; the ear 
 may become so exquisitely sensitive as to be more 
 susceptible to the uneasiness produced by discords than 
 to the pleasures of harmony. In the nations which have 
 been long civilised the defects are generally those de- 
 pendent on excess of sensibility defects which are 
 cured in the next generation by the strength and 
 power belonging to a ruder tribe. In looking back 
 upon the vision of ancient history, you will find that 
 there never has been an instance of a migration to any
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 41 
 
 extent of any race but the Caucasian, and they have 
 usually passed from the North to the South. The 
 negro race has always been driven before these con- 
 querors of the world ; and the red men, the aborigines 
 of America, are constantly diminishing in number, and 
 it is probable that in a few centuries more their pure 
 blood will be entirely extinct. In the population of the 
 world, the great object is evidently to produce organised 
 frames most capable of the happy and intellectual en- 
 joyment of life to raise man above the mere animal 
 state. To perpetuate the advantages of civilisation, 
 the races most capable of these advantages are pre- 
 served and extended, and no considerable improvement 
 made by an individual is ever lost to society. You see 
 living forms perpetuated in the series of ages, and 
 apparently the quantity of life increased. In com- 
 paring the population of the globe as it now is with 
 what it was centuries ago, you would find it consider- 
 ably greater ; and if the quantity of life is increased, 
 the quantity of happiness, particularly that resulting 
 from the exercise of intellectual power, is increased in 
 a still higher ratio. Now, you will say, * Is mind 
 generated, is spiritual power created ; or are those 
 results dependent upon the organisation of matter, 
 upon new perfections given to the machinery upon 
 which thought and motion depend ? ' I proclaim to 
 you," said the Genius, raising his voice from its low and 
 sweet tone to one of ineffable majesty, " neither of these 
 opinions is true. Listen, whilst I reveal to you the 
 mysteries of spiritual natures, but I almost fear that 
 with the mortal veil of your senses surrounding you, 
 these mysteries can never be made perfectly intelligible 
 to your mind. Spiritual natures are eternal and
 
 42 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 indivisible, but their modes of being are as iunnitely 
 varied as the forms of matter. They have no relation 
 to space, and, in their transitions, no dependence upon 
 time, so that they can pass from one part of the 
 universe to another by laws entirely independent of 
 their motion. The quantity, or the number of spiritual 
 essences, like the quantity or number of the atoms of 
 the material world, are always the same; but their 
 arrangements, like those of the materials which they 
 are destined to guide or govern, are infinitely diver- 
 sified ; they are, in fact, parts more or less inferior of 
 the infinite mind, and in the planetary systems, to one 
 of which this globe you inhabit belongs, are in a state 
 of probation, continually aiming at, and generally rising 
 to a higher state of existence. Were it permitted me to 
 extend your vision to the fates of individual existences, 
 I could show you the same spirit, which in the form of 
 Socrates developed the foundations of moral and social 
 virtue, in the Czar Peter possessed of supreme power 
 and enjoying exalted felicity in improving a rude 
 people. I could show you the monad or spirit, which 
 with the organs of Xewton displayed an intelligence 
 almost above humanity, now in a higher and better 
 state of planetary existence drinking intellectual light 
 from a purer source and approaching nearer to the 
 infinite and divine Mind. But prepare your mind, and 
 you shall at least catch a glimpse of those states which 
 the highest intellectual beings that have belonged to 
 the earth enjoy after death in their transition to new 
 and more exalted natures." The voice ceased, and' I 
 appeared in a dark, deep, and cold cave, of which the 
 walls of the Colosseum formed the boundary. From 
 above a bright and rosy light broke into this cave, so
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 43 
 
 that whilst below all was dark, above all was bright 
 and illuminated with glory. I seemed possessed at 
 this moment of a new sense, and felt that the light 
 brought with it a genial warmth ; odours like those of 
 the most balmy flowers appeared to fill the air, and the 
 sweetest sounds of music absorbed my sense of hearing ; 
 my limbs had a new lightness given to them, so that I 
 seemed to rise from the earth, and gradually mounted 
 into the bright luminous air, leaving behind me the 
 dark and cold cavern, and the ruins with which it was 
 strewed. Language is inadequate to describe what I 
 felt in rising continually upwards through this bright 
 and luminous atmosphere. I had not, as is generally 
 the case with persons in dreams of this kind, imagined 
 to myself wings ; but I rose gradually and securely as 
 if I were myself a part of the ascending column of 
 light. By degrees this luminous atmosphere, which 
 was diffused over the whole of space, became more 
 circumscribed, and extended only to a limited spot 
 around me. I saw through it the bright blue sky, the 
 moon and stars, and I passed by them as if it were in 
 my power to touch them with my hand. I beheld 
 Jupiter and Saturn as they appear through our best 
 telescopes, but still more magnified, all the moons and 
 belts of Jupiter being perfectly distinct, and the double 
 ring of Saturn appearing in that state in which I have 
 heard Herschel often express a wish he could see it. 
 It seemed as if I was on the verge of the solar system, 
 and my moving sphere of light now appeared to pause. 
 I again heard the low and sweet voice of the Genius, 
 which said, " You are now on the verge of your own 
 system : will you go further, or return to the earth Y " 
 I replied, '* I have left an abode which is damp, dreary,
 
 44 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 dark and cold ; I am now in a place where all is life, 
 light, and enjoyment ; show me, at least before I return, 
 the glimpse which you promised me of those superior 
 intellectual natures and the modes of their being and 
 their enjoyments." " There are creatures far superior." 
 said the Genius, " to any idea your imagination can 
 form in that part of the system now before you, com- 
 prehending Saturn, his moons and rings. I will carry 
 you to the verge of the immense atmosphere of this 
 planet. In that space you will see sufficient to wonder 
 at, and far more than with your present organisation 
 it would be possible for me to make you understand." 
 I was again in motion, and again almost as suddenly at 
 rest. I saw below me a surface infinitely diversified, 
 something like that of an immense glacier covered with 
 large columnar masses, which appeared as if formed of 
 glass, and from which were suspended rounded forms 
 of various sizes, which, if they had not been trans- 
 parent, I might have supposed to be fruit. From what 
 appeared to me to be analogous to masses of bright blue 
 ice, streams of the richest tint of rose-colour or purple 
 burst forth and flowed into basins, forming lakes or 
 seas of the same colour. Looking through the atmo- 
 sphere towards the heavens, I saw brilliant opaque 
 clouds of an azure colour that reflected the light of the 
 sun, which had to my eyes an entirely new aspect, and 
 appeared smaller, as if seen through a dense blue mist. 
 I saw moving on the surface below me immense masses, 
 the forms of which I find it impossible to describe ; 
 they had systems for locomotion similar to those of the 
 morse or sea-horse, but I saw with great surprise that 
 they moved from place to place by sis extremely thin 
 membranes, which they used as wings. Their colours
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 45 
 
 were varied and beautiful, but principally azure and 
 rose-colour. I saw numerous convolutions of tubes, 
 more analogous to the trunk of the elephant than to 
 anything else I can imagine, occupying what I sup- 
 posed to be the upper parts of the body, and my feeling 
 of astonishment almost became one of disgust, from 
 the peculiar character of the organs of these singular 
 beings ; and it was with a species of terror that 1 saw 
 one of them mounting upwards, apparently flying to- 
 wards those opaque clouds which I have before men- 
 tioned. "I know what your feelings are," said the 
 Genius ; " you want analogies and all the elements 
 of knowledge to comprehend the scene before you. 
 You are in the same state in which a fly would be 
 whose microscopic eye was changed for one similar to 
 that of man ; and you are wholly unable to associate 
 what you now see with your former knowledge. But 
 those beings who are before you, and who appear to 
 you almost as imperfect in their functions as the zoo- 
 phytes of the Polar Sea, to which they are not unlike 
 in their apparent organisation to your eyes, have a 
 sphere of sensibility and intellectual enjoyment far 
 superior to that of the inhabitants of your earth. Each 
 of those tubes which appears like the trunk of an 
 elephant is an organ of peculiar motion or sensation. 
 They have many modes of perception of which you 
 are wholly ignorant, at the same time that their 
 sphere of vision is infinitely more extended than 
 yours, and their organs of touch far more perfect and 
 exquisite. It would be useless for me to attempt to ex- 
 plain their organisation, which you could never under- 
 stand; but of their intellectual objects of pursuit I 
 may perhaps give you some notion. They have used,
 
 46 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 modified, and applied the material world in a manner 
 analogous to man ; but with far superior powers they 
 have gained superior results. Their atmosphere being 
 much denser than yours and the specific gravity of 
 their planet less, they have been enabled to determine 
 the laws belonging to the solar system with far more 
 accuracy than you can possibly conceive, and any one 
 of those beings could show you what is now the 
 situation and appearance of your moon with a precision 
 that would induce you to believe that he saw it, though 
 his knowledge is merely the result of calculation. 
 Their sources of pleasure are of the highest intel- 
 lectual nature ; with the magnificent spectacle of their 
 own rings and moons revolving round them, with the 
 various combinations required to understand and pre- 
 dict the relations of these wonderful phenomena their 
 minds are in unceasing activity and this activity is a 
 perpetual source of enjoyment. Your view of the 
 Bolar system is bounded by Uranus, and the laws of 
 this planet form the ultimatum of your mathematical 
 results ; but these beings catch a sight of planets 
 belonging to another system and even reason on the 
 phenomena presented by another sun. Those comets, 
 of which your astronomical history is so imperfect, are 
 to them perfectly familiar, and in their epheinerides 
 their places are shown with as much accurateness as 
 those of Jupiter or Yenus in your almanacks ; the 
 parallax of the fixed stars neaivst them is as well 
 understood as that of their own sun, and they possess 
 a magnificent history of the changes taking place in 
 the heavens and which are governed by laws that it 
 would be vain for me to attempt to give you an idea 
 of. They are acquainted with the revolutions and
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 47 
 
 uses of comets ; they understand the system of those 
 meteoric formations of stones which have so much 
 astonished you on earth; and they have histories in 
 which the gradual changes of nebulae in their progress 
 towards systems have been registered, so that they 
 can predict their future changes. And their astrono- 
 mical records are not like yours which go back only 
 twenty centuries to the time of Hipparchus; they 
 embrace a period a hundred times as long, and their 
 civil history for the same time is as correct as their 
 astronomical one. As I cannot describe to you the 
 organs of these wonderful beings, so neither can I 
 show to you their modes of life ; but as their highest 
 pleasures depend upon intellectual pursuits, so you 
 may conclude that those modes of life bear the 
 strictest analogy to that which on the earth you would 
 call exalted virtue. I will tell you however that they 
 have no wars, and that the objects of their ambition 
 are entirely those of intellectual greatness, and that 
 the only passion that they feel in which comparisons 
 with each other can be instituted are those dependent 
 upon a love of glory of the purest kind. If I were to 
 show you the different parts of the surface of this 
 planet, you would see marvellous results of the powers 
 possessed by these highly intellectual beings and of 
 the wonderful manner in which they have applied and 
 modified matter. Those columnar masses, which seem 
 to you as if arising out of a mass of ice below, are 
 results of art, and processes are going on in them 
 connected with the formation and perfection of their 
 food. The brilliant coloured fluids are the results of 
 such operations as on the earth would be performed 
 in your laboratories, or more properly in your refined
 
 48 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 culinary apparatus, for they are connected with their 
 system of nourishment. Those opaque azure clouds, 
 to which you saw a few minutes ago one of those 
 beings directing his course, are works of art and 
 places in which they move through different regions 
 of their atmosphere and command the temperature 
 and the quantity of light most fitted for their philo- 
 sophical researches, or most convenient for the purposes 
 of life. On the verge of the visible horizon which we 
 perceive around us, you may see in the east a very 
 dark spot or shadow, in which the light of the sun 
 seems entirely absorbed ; this is the border of an im- 
 mense mass of liquid analogous to your ocean, but 
 unlike your sea it is inhabited by a race of intellectual 
 beings inferior indeed to those belonging to the at- 
 mosphere of Saturn, but yet possessed of an extensive 
 range of sensations and endowed with extraordinary 
 power and intelligence. I could transport you to the 
 different planets and show you in each peculiar in- 
 tellectual beings bearing analogies to each other, but 
 yet all different in power and essence. In Jupiter you 
 would see creatures similar to those in Saturn, but 
 with different powers of locomotion; in Mars and 
 Yenus you would find races of created forms more 
 analogous to those belonging to the earth; but in 
 every part of the planetary system you would find one 
 character peculiar to all intelligent natures, a sense of 
 receiving impressions from light by various organs of 
 vision, and towards this result you cannot but perceive 
 that all the arrangements and motions of the planetary 
 bodies, their satellites and atmospheres are subservient. 
 The spiritual natures therefore that pass from system 
 to system in progression towards power and know-
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 49 
 
 ledge preserve at least tliis one invariable character, 
 and their intellectual life may be said to depend more 
 or less upon the influence of light. As far as my 
 knowledge extends, even in other parts of the universe 
 the more perfect organised systems still possess this 
 source of sensation and enjoyment ; but with higher 
 natures, finer and more ethereal kinds of matter are 
 employed in organisation, substances that bear the 
 same analogy to common matter that the refined or 
 most subtle gases do to common solids and fluids. The 
 universe is everywhere full of life, but the modes of 
 this life are infinitely diversified, and yet every 
 form of it must be enjoyed and known by every 
 spiritual nature before the consummation of all things. 
 You have seen the comet moving with its immense 
 train of light through the sky; this likewise has a 
 system supplied with living beings and their existence 
 derives its enjoyment from the diversity of circum- 
 stances to which they are exposed; passing as it 
 were through the infinity of space they are continually 
 gratified by the sight of new systems and worlds, and 
 you can imagine the unbounded nature of the circle 
 of their knowledge. My power extends so far as 
 to afford you a glimpse of the nature of a cometary 
 world." I was again in rapid motion, again passing 
 with the utmost velocity through the bright blue 
 sky, and I saw Jupiter and his satellites and Saturn 
 and his ring behind me, and before me the sun, no 
 longer appearing as through a blue mist but in bright 
 and unsupportable splendour, towards which I seemed 
 moving with the utmost velocity ; in a limited sphere 
 of vision, in a kind of red hazy light similar to that 
 which first broke in upon me in the Colosaeum, I sa\v
 
 50 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 moving round me globes which appeared composed of 
 different kinds of flame and of different colours. In 
 some of these globes I recognised figures which put me 
 in mind of the human countenance, but the resemblance 
 was so awful and unnatural that I endeavoured to with- 
 draw my view from them. " You are now," said the 
 Genius, " in a cometary system ; those globes of light 
 surrounding you are material forms, such as in one of 
 your systems of religious faith have been attributed to 
 seraphs ; they live in that element which to you would 
 be destruction ; they communicate by powers which 
 would convert your organised frame into ashes ; they 
 are now in the height of their enjoyment, being about 
 to enter into the blaze of the solar atmosphere. These 
 beings so grand, so glorious, with functions to you 
 incomprehensible, once belonged to the earth; their 
 spiritual natures have risen through different stages of 
 planetary life, leaving their dust behind them, carrying 
 with them only their intellectual power. You ask me 
 if they have any knowledge or reminiscence of their 
 transitions ; tell me of your own recollections in the 
 womb of your mother and I will answer you. It is the 
 law of divine wisdom that no spirit carries with it into 
 another state and being any habit or mental qualities 
 except those which may be connected with its new 
 wants or enjoyments ; and knowledge relating to the 
 earth would be no more useful to these glorified beings 
 than their earthly system of organised dust, which 
 would be instantly resolved into its ultimate atoms at 
 such a temperature ; even on the earth the butterfly 
 does not transport with it into the air the organs or the 
 appetites of the crawling worm from which it sprung. 
 There is, however, one sentiment or passion which the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 51 
 
 monad or spiritual essence carries with it into all its 
 stages of being, and which in these happy and elevated 
 creatures is continually exalted ; the love of knowledge 
 or of intellectual power, which is, in fact, in its 
 ultimate and most perfect development the k>ve of 
 infinite wisdom and unbounded power, or the love of 
 God. Even in the imperfect life that belongs to the 
 earth this passion exists in a considerable degree, in- 
 creases even with age, outlives the perfection of the 
 corporeal faculties, and at the moment of death is felt 
 by the conscious being, and its future destinies depend 
 upon the manner in which it has been exercised and 
 exalted. When it has been misapplied and assumed 
 the forms of vague curiosity, restless ambition, vain 
 glory, pride or oppression, the being is degraded, it 
 sinks in the scale of existence and still belongs to the 
 earth or an inferior system, till its errors are corrected 
 by painful discipline. When, on the contrary, the love 
 of intellectual power has been exercised on its noblest 
 objects, in discovering and in contemplating the pro- 
 perties of created forms and in applying them to 
 useful and benevolent purposes, in developing and 
 admiring the laws of the eternal Intelligence, the 
 destinies of the sentient principle are of a nobler 
 kind, it rises to a higher planetary world. From the 
 height to which you have been lifted I could carry you 
 downwards and show you intellectual natures even 
 inferior to those belonging to the earth, in your own 
 moon and in the lower planets, and I could demonstrate 
 to you the effects of pain or moral evil in assisting 
 in the great plan of the exaltation of spiritual natures ; 
 but I will not destroy the brightness of your present 
 idea of the scheme of the universe by degrading
 
 52 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 pictures of the effects of bad passions and of the 
 manner in which evil is corrected and destroyed. Tour 
 vision must end with the glorious view of the inhabi- 
 tants of the cometary worlds ; I cannot show you the 
 beings of the system to which I, myself, belong, that 
 of the sun; your organs would perish before our 
 brightness, and I am only permitted to be present to 
 you as a sound or intellectual voice. We are likewise 
 in progression, but we see and know something of the 
 plans of infinite wisdom ; we feel the personal presence 
 of that supreme Deity which you only imagine; to 
 you belongs faith, to us knowledge ; and our greatest 
 delight results from the conviction that we are lights 
 kindled by His light and that we belong to His sub- 
 stance. To obey, to love, to wonder and adore, form 
 our relations to the infinite Intelligence. "We feel His 
 laws are those of eternal justice and that they govern 
 all things from the most glorious intellectual natures 
 belonging to the sun and fixed stars to the meanest 
 spark of life animating an atom crawling in the dust 
 of your earth. We know all things begin from and 
 end in His everlasting essence, the cause of causes, the 
 power of powers." 
 
 The low and sweet voice ceased ; it appeared as if I 
 had fallen suddenly upon the earth, but there was a 
 bright light before me and I heard my name loudly 
 called ; the voice was not of my intellectual guide 
 the genius before me was my servant bearing a 
 flambeau in his hand. He told me he had been search- 
 ing me in vain amongst the ruins, that the carriagv 
 had been waiting for me above an hour, and that he 
 had left a large party of my friends assembled in the 
 Palazzo F .
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 53 
 
 DIALOGUE THE SECOND 
 
 DISCUSSIONS CONNECTED WITH THE VISION IN 
 THE COLOSJEUM. 
 
 THE same friends, Arabrosio and Onuphrio, who were 
 niy companions at Rome in the winter, accompanied 
 me in the spring to Naples. Many conversations 
 occurred in the course of our journey which were often 
 to me peculiarly instructive, and from the difference of 
 their opinions generally animated and often enter- 
 taining. I shall detail one of these conversations, 
 which took place in the evening on the summit of 
 Vesuvius, and the remembrance of which from its 
 connection with my vision in the Colosseum has always 
 a peculiar interest for me. We had reached with some 
 labour the edge of the crater and were admiring the 
 wonderful scene around us. I shall give the conversa- 
 tion in the words of the persons of the drama. 
 
 Philalethes. It is difficult to say whether there is 
 more of sublimity or beauty in the scene around us. 
 Nature appears at once smiling and frowning, in 
 activity and repose. How tremendous is the volcano, 
 how magnificent this great laboratory of Nature in its 
 unceasing fire, its subterraneous lightnings and thunder, 
 its volumes of smoke, its showers of stones and its 
 rivers of ignited lava ! How contrasted the darkness 
 of the scorise, the ruins and the desolation round the 
 crater with the scene below ! There we see the rich 
 field covered with flax, or maize, or millet, and inter- 
 sected by rows of trees which support the green and 
 graceful festoons of the vine ; the orange and lemon 
 tree covered with golden fruit appear in the sheltered 
 glens; the olive trees cover the lower hills; islands
 
 54 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 purple in the beams of the setting sun are scattered 
 over the sea in the west, and the sky is tinted with red 
 softening into the brightest and purest azure ; the 
 distant mountains still retain a part of the snows of 
 winter, but they are rapidly melting and they absolutely 
 seem to melt reflecting the beams of the setting sun. 
 glowing as if on fire. And man appears emulous of 
 Nature, for the city below is full of activity : the 
 nearest part of the bay is covered with boats, busy 
 multitudes crowd the strand, and at the same time may 
 be seen a number of the arts belonging to civilised 
 society in operation house-building, ship-building, 
 rope-making, the manipulations of the smith and of the 
 agriculturist, and not only the useful arts, but even 
 the amusements and luxuries of a great metropolis 
 may be witnessed from the spot in which we stand ; 
 that motley crowd is collected round a policiuello, and 
 those smaller groups that surround the stalls are 
 employed in enjoying the favourite food and drink of 
 the lazzaroni. 
 
 Awibrosio. We see not only the power and activity 
 of man. as existing at present, and of which the highest 
 example may be represented by the steam-boat which 
 is now departing for Palermo, but we may likewise 
 view scenes which carry us into the very bosom of 
 antiquity, and, as it were, make us live with the genera- 
 tions of past ages. Those small square buildings, 
 scarcely visible in the distance, are the tombs of dis- 
 tinguished men amongst the early Greek colonists of 
 the country ; and those rows of houses, without roofs, 
 which appear as if newly erecting, constitute a Roman 
 town restored from its ashes, that remained for cen- 
 turies as if it had been swept fi*om the face of the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 55 
 
 earth. When you study it in detail you will hardly 
 avoid the illusion that it is a rising city; you will 
 almost be tempted to ask where are the workmen, so 
 perfect art the walls of the houses, so bright and un- 
 injured the painting upon them. Hardly anything is 
 wanting to make this scene a magnificent epitome of 
 all that is most worthy of admiration in Nature and 
 art ; had there been in addition to the other objects a 
 fine river and a waterfall the epitome would, I think, 
 have been absolutely perfect. 
 
 Phil. You are most unreasonable in imagining 
 additions to a scene which it is impossible to embrace 
 in one view, and which presents so many objects to the 
 senses, the memory, and to the imagination ; yet there 
 is a river in the valley between Naples and Castel del 
 Mare; you may see its silver thread and the white 
 foam of its torrents in the distance, and if you were 
 geologists you would find a number of sources of 
 interest, which have not been mentioned, in the scenery 
 surrounding us. Somma which is before us, for 
 instance, affords a wonderful example of a mountain 
 formed of marine deposits, and which has been raised 
 by subterraneous fire, and those large and singular 
 veins which you see at the base and rising through the 
 substance of the strata are composed of volcanic 
 porphyry, and offer a most striking and beautiful 
 example of the generation and structure of rocks and 
 mineral formations. 
 
 Onuphrio. As we passed through Portici, on the 
 road to the base of Vesuvius, it appeared to me that 
 I saw a stone which had an ancient Roman inscription 
 upon it, and which occupied the place of a portal in 
 the modern palace of the Barberini.
 
 56 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 Pli il. This is not an uncommon circumstance. Most 
 of the stones used in the palaces of Portici had been 
 employed more than two thousand years before in 
 structures raised by the ancient Romans or Greek 
 colonists; and it is not a little remarkable that the 
 buildings of Herculaneum, a town covered with ashes, 
 tufa, and lava, from the first recorded eruption of 
 Vesuvius more than seventeen hundred years ago, 
 should have been constructed of volcanic materials 
 produced by some antecedent igneous action of the 
 mountain in times beyond the reach of history ; and it 
 is still more remarkable that men should have gone on 
 for so many ages making erections in spots where their 
 works have been so often destroyed, inattentive to the 
 roice of time or the warnings of nature. 
 
 Onu. This last fact recalls to my recollection an 
 idea which Philalethes started in the remarkable 
 dream which he would have us believe occurred to him 
 in the Colosaeum. namely that no important facts 
 which can be useful to society are ever lost ; and that, 
 like these stones, which though covered with ashes or 
 hidden amongst ruins, they are sure to be brought 
 forward again and made use of in some new form. 
 
 Ami). I do not see the justness of the analogy to 
 which Onuphrio refers ; but there are many parts of 
 that vision on which I should wish to hear the explana- 
 tions of Philalethes. I consider it in fact as a sort of 
 poetical epitome of his philosophical opinions, and I 
 regard this vision or dream as a mere web of his 
 imagination in which he intended to catch us, his 
 summer-flies and travelling companions. 
 
 Phil. There. Ambrosio, you do me wrong. I will 
 acknowledge, if you please, that the vision in the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TKAVEL. 57 
 
 Colosseum is a fiction ; but the most important parts 
 of it really occurred to me in sleep, particularly 'that 
 in which I seemed to leave the earth and launch into 
 the infinity of space under the guidance of a tutelary 
 genius. And the origin and progress of civil society 
 form likewise parts of another dream which I had 
 many years ago, and it was in the reverie which hap- 
 pened when you quitted me in the Colosaeuin that I 
 wove all these thoughts together, and gave them the 
 form in which I narrated them to you. 
 
 Amb. Of course we may consider them as an 
 accurate representation of your waking thoughts. 
 
 Phil. I do not say that they strictly are so, for I 
 am not quite convinced that dreams are always repre- 
 sentations of the state of the mind modified by organic 
 diseases or by associations. There are certainly no 
 absolutely new ideas produced in sleep, yet I have had 
 more than one instance, in the course of my life, of 
 most extraordinary combinations occurring in this state, 
 which have had considerable influence on my feelings, 
 my imagination, and my health. 
 
 Onu. Why, Philalethes, you are becoming a 
 visionary, a dreamer of dreams. We shall perhaps 
 set you down by the side of Jacob Behmen or of 
 Emanuel Swedenbourg, and in an earlier age you 
 might have been a prophet, and have ranked perhaps 
 with Mahomet. But pray give us one of these in- 
 stances in which such a marvellous influence was pro- 
 duced on your imagination and your health by a dream, 
 that we may form some judgment of the nature of 
 your second sight or inspirations ; and whether they 
 have any foundation, or whether they are not, as I
 
 58 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 believe, really unfounded, inventions of the fancy. 
 dreams respecting dreams. 
 
 Phil. I anticipate unbelief, and I expose myself to 
 your ridicule in the statement I am about to make, yet 
 I shall mention nothing but a simple fact. Almost a 
 quarter of a century ago, as you know, I contracted 
 that terrible form of typhus-fever known by the name 
 of gaol-fever, I may say, not from any imprudence of 
 my own, but whilst engaged in putting in execution a 
 plan for ventilating one of the great prisons of the 
 metropolis. My illness was severe and dangerous. 
 As long as the fever continued, my dreams or delirium 
 were most painful and oppressive ; but when the weak- 
 ness consequent to exhaustion came on, and when the 
 probability of death seemed to my physicians greater 
 than that of life, there was an entire change in all my 
 ideal combinations. I remained in an apparently sense- 
 less or lethargic state, but in fact my mind was pecu- 
 liarly active ; there was always before me the form of 
 a beautiful woman, with whom I was engaged in the 
 most interesting and intellectual conversation. 
 
 Amb. The figure of a lady with whom you were in 
 We. 
 
 Phil. No such thing ; I was passionately in love at 
 the time, but the object of my admiration was a lady 
 \vith black hair, dark eyes, and pale complexion ; this 
 spirit of my vision, on the contrary, had brown hair, 
 blue eyes, and a bright rosy complexion, and was, as 
 far as I can recollect, unlike any of the amatory forms 
 which in early youth had so often haunted my imagina- 
 tion. Her figure for many days was so distinct in 
 my mind, as to form almost a visual image. As I 
 gained strength, the visits of my good angel (for so I
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TKAVEL. 59 
 
 called it) became less frequent, and when I was restored 
 to health they were altogether discontinued. 
 
 Onu. I see" nothing very strange in this a mere 
 reaction of the mind after severe pain and, to a young 
 man of twenty-five, there are few more pleasurable 
 images than that of a beautiful maiden with blue eyes, 
 blooming cheeks, and long nut-brown hair. 
 
 Phil. But all my feelings and all my conversations 
 with this visionary maiden were of an intellectual and 
 refined nature. 
 
 Onu. Yes, I suppose, as long as you were ill. 
 
 Phil. I will not allow you to treat me with ridicule 
 on this point till you have heard the second part of my 
 tale. Ten years after I had recovered from the fever, 
 and when I had almost lost the recollection of the 
 vision, it was recalled to my memory by a very bloom- 
 ing and graceful maiden, fourteen or fifteen years old, 
 that I accidentally met during my travels in Illyria ; 
 but I cannot say that the impression made upon my 
 mind by this female was very strong. Now conies the 
 extraordinary part of the narrative. Ten years after, 
 twenty years after my first illness, at a time when I 
 was exceedingly weak from a severe and dangerous 
 malady, which for many weeks threatened my life, and 
 when my mind was almost in a desponding state, being 
 in a course of travels ordered by my medical advisers, 
 I again met the person who was the representative of 
 my visional'}' female, and to her kindness and care I 
 believe I owe what remains to me of existence. My 
 despondency gradually disappeared, and though my 
 health still continued weak, life began to .possess 
 charms for me which I had thought were for ever 
 gone ; and I could not help identifying the living angel
 
 60 CONSOLATIONS IN TEAVEL. 
 
 with the vision which appeared as my guardian genius 
 during the illness of my youth. 
 
 Onu. I really see nothing at all in this fact, "whether 
 the first or the second part of the narrative be con- 
 sidered, beyond the influence of an imagination excited 
 by disease. From youth, even to age, women are our 
 guardian angels, our comforters ; and I dare say any 
 other handsome young female, who had been your nurse 
 in your last illness, would have coincided with your re- 
 membrance of the vision, even though her eyes had 
 been hazel and her hair flaxen. Nothing can be more 
 loose than the images represented in dreams follow, 
 ing a fever, and with the nervous susceptibility pro- 
 duced by your last illness, almost any agreeable form 
 would have become the representative of your im- 
 aginary guardian genius. Thus it is, that by the 
 power of fancy, material forms are clothed in super- 
 natural attributes ; and in the same manner imaginary 
 divinities have all the forms of mortality bestowed 
 upon them. The gods of the pagan mythology were 
 in all their characters and attributes exalted human 
 beings ; the demon of the coward, and the angelic form 
 that appears in the dream of some maid smitten by 
 devotion, and who, having lost her earthly lover, fixes 
 her thoughts on heaven, are clothed in the character 
 and vestments of humanity changed by the dreaminess 
 of passion. 
 
 Ainb. With such a tendency, Philalethes, as you 
 have shown to believe in something like a supernatural 
 or divine influence on the human mind, I am as- 
 tonished there should be so much scepticism belonging 
 to your vision in the Colosseum. And your view of 
 the early state of man, after his first creation, is not
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 61 
 
 only incompatible with revelation, but likewise with 
 reason and everything that we know respecting the 
 history or traditions of the early nations of antiquity. 
 
 Phil. Be more distinct and detailed in your state- 
 ments, Ambrosio, that I may be able to reply to them ; 
 and whilst we are waiting for the sunrise we may 
 discuss the subject, and for this, let us seat ourselves 
 on these stones, . where we shall be warmed by the 
 vicinity of the current of lava. 
 
 Amb. You consider man, in his early or first created 
 state, a savage, like those who now inhabit New 
 Holland or New Zealand, acquiring by the little use 
 that they make of a feeble reason the power of sup- 
 porting and extending life. Now, I contend, that if 
 man had been so created, he must inevitably have been 
 destroyed by the elements or devoured by savage beasts, 
 so infinitely his superiors in physical force. He must, 
 therefore, have been formed with various instinctive 
 faculties and propensities, with a perfection of form 
 and use of organs fitting him to become the master of 
 the earth ; and, it appears to me, that the account 
 given in Genesis of the first parents of mankind having 
 been placed in a garden fitted with everything neces- 
 sary to their existence and enjoyment, and ordered to 
 increase and multiply there, is strictly in harmony 
 with reason, and accordant with all just metaphysical 
 views of th e human mind. Man as he now exists can only 
 be raised with great care and difficulty from the infant 
 to the mature state ; all his motions are at first auto- 
 matic, and become voluntary by association ; he has to 
 learn everything by slow and difficult processes, many 
 months elapse before he is able to stand, and many 
 years before he is able to provide for the common
 
 62 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 wants of life. Without the mother or the nurse in his 
 infant state, he would die in a few hours ; and without 
 the laborious discipline of instruction and example, he 
 would remain idiotic and inferior to most other animals. 
 His reason is only acquired gradually, and when in its 
 highest perfection is often uncertain in its results. He 
 must, therefore, have been created with instincts that 
 for a long while supplied the want of reason, and 
 which enabled him from the first moment of his exist- 
 ence to provide for his wants, to gratify his desires, 
 and enjoy the power and the activity of life. 
 
 Phil. I acknowledge that your objection has some 
 weight, but not so much as you would attribute to it. 
 I will suppose that the first created man or men had 
 certain powers or instincts, such as now belong to the 
 rudest savages of the southern hemisphere ; I will 
 suppose them created with the use of their organs for 
 defence and offence and with passions and propensities 
 enabling them to supply their own wants. And I 
 oppose the fact of races who are now actually in this 
 state to your vague historical or traditionary records ; 
 and their gradual progress or improvement from this 
 early state of society to that of the highest state of 
 civilisation or refinement may. I think, be easily 
 deduced from the exertions of reason assisted by the 
 influence of the moral powers and of physical circum- 
 stances. Accident, I conceive, must have had some 
 influence in laying the foundations of certain arts ; and 
 a climate in which labour was not too oppressive, and 
 in which the exertion of industry was required to 
 provide for the wants of life must have fixed the 
 character of the activity of the early improving people ; 
 where nature is too kind a mother, man is generally a
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 63 
 
 spoiled child ; where she is severe, and a stepmother, 
 his powers are usually withered and destroyed. The 
 people of the south and the north and those between 
 the tropics offer, even at this day, proof of the truth of 
 this principle ; and it is even possible now to find on 
 the surface of the earth, all the different gradations of 
 the states of society, from that in which man is scarcely 
 removed above the brute, to that in which he appears 
 approaching in his nature to a divine intelligence. 
 Besides, reason being the noblest gift of God to man, 
 I can hardly suppose that an infinitely powerful and all- 
 wise Creator would bestow upon the early inhabitants 
 of the globe a greater proportion of instinct than was 
 at first necessary to preserve their existence, and that 
 he would not leave the great progress of their im- 
 provement to the development and exaltation of their 
 reasoning powers. 
 
 Amb. You appear to me in your argument to have 
 forgotten the influence that any civilised race must 
 possess over savages ; and many of the nations which 
 you consider as in their original state, may have 
 descended from nations formerly civilised ; and, it is 
 quite as easy to trace the retrograde steps of a people 
 as their advances ; the savage hordes who now inhabit 
 the northern coast of Africa are probably descended 
 from the opulent, commercial, and ingenious Cartha- 
 ginians who once contended with Rome for the empire 
 of the world ; and even nearer home, we might find in 
 Southern Italy and her islands, proofs of a degradation 
 not much inferior. What I contend for is the civilisa- 
 of the first patriarchal races who peopled the East, and 
 who passed into Europe from Armenia, in which 
 paradise is supposed to have been placed. The early
 
 64 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 civilisation of this race could only have been in conse- 
 quence of their powers and instincts having been of a 
 higher character than those of savages. They appear 
 to have been small families a state not at all fitted 
 for the discovery of arts by the exercise of the rnind ; 
 and they professed the most sublime form of religion, 
 the worship of one Supreme Intelligence a truth 
 which, after a thousand years of civilisation, was with 
 difficulty attained by the most powerful efforts of 
 reasoning by the Greek sages. It appears to me, that 
 in the history of the Jews, nothing can be more in con- 
 formity to our ideas of just analogy than this series of 
 events. Our first parents were created with every- 
 thing necessary for their wants and their happiness ; 
 they had only one duty to perform, by their obedience 
 to prove their love and devotion to their Creator. In 
 this they failed, and death or the fear of death 
 became a curse upon their race ; but the father of 
 mankind repented, and his instinctive or intellectual 
 powers given by revelation were transmitted to his 
 offspring more or less modified by their reason, which 
 they had gained as the fruit of their disobedience. 
 One branch of his offspring, however, in whom faith 
 shone forth above reason, retained their peculiar powers 
 and institutions and preserved the worship of Jehovah 
 pure, whilst many of the races sprung from their 
 brethren became idolatrous, and the clear light of 
 heaven was lost through the mist of the senses ; and 
 that Being, worshipped by the Israelites only as a 
 mysterious word, was forgotten by many of the 
 nations who lived in the neighbouring countries, and 
 men, beasts, the parts of the visible universe, and even 
 stocks and stones, were set up as objects of adoration.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 65 
 
 The difficulty which the divine legislators of the 
 Jewish people had to preserve the purity of their 
 religion amongst the idolatrous nations by whom they 
 were surrounded, proves the natural evil tendency of 
 the human mind after the fall of man. And, whoever 
 will consider the nature of the Mosaical or ceremonial 
 law and the manner in which it was suspended before 
 the end of the Roman Empire, the expiatory sacrifice of 
 the Messiah, the fear of death destroyed by the blessed 
 hopes of immortality established by the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, 
 and the triumphs of Christianity over paganism in the 
 time of Constantine, can I think, hardly fail to ac- 
 knowledge the reasonableness of the truth of revealed 
 religion as founded upon the early history of man ; and 
 whoever acknowledges this reasonableness and this 
 truth, must I think be dissatisfied with the view which 
 Philalethes or his genius has given of the progress of 
 society, and will find in it one instance, amongst many 
 others that might be discovered, of the vague and 
 erring results of his so much boasted human reason. 
 
 Onu. I fear I shall shock Ambrosio, but I cannot 
 help vindicating a little the philosophical results of 
 human reason, which it must be allowed are entirely 
 hostile to his ideas. I agree with Philalethes that it is 
 the noblest gift of God to man ; and I cannot think 
 that Ambrosio's view of the paradisaical condition and 
 the fall of man and the progress of society is at all in 
 conformity with the ideas we ought to form of the 
 institutions of an infinitely wise and powerful Being. 
 Besides, Ambrosio speaks of the reasonableness of his 
 own opinions ; of course his notions of reason must be 
 different from mine, or we have adopted different forms 
 c 203
 
 G6 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 of logic. I do not find in the biblical history any idea 
 of the supreme Intelligence conformable to those of the 
 Greek philosophers ; on the contrary. I find Jehovah 
 everywhere described as a powerful material being, 
 endowed with organs, feelings, and passions similar to 
 those of a great and exalted human agent. He is 
 described as making man in His own image, as walking 
 in the garden in the cool of the evening, as being 
 pleased with sacrificial offerings, as angry with Adam 
 and Eve. as personally cursing Cain for his crime of 
 fratricide, and even as providing our first parents with 
 garments to hide their nakedness ; then He appears a 
 material form in the midst of flames, thunder and 
 lightning, and was regarded by the Levites as having 
 a fixed residence in the Ark. He is contrasted through- 
 out the whole of the Old Testament with the gods of 
 the heathens, only as being more powerful ; and in the 
 strange scene which took place in Pharaoh's court He 
 seemed to have measured His abilities with those of 
 certain seers or magicians, and to have proved His 
 superiority only by producing greater and more tremen- 
 dous plagues. In all the early history of the Jewish 
 nation there is no conception approaching to the sub- 
 limity of that of Auaxagoras, who called God the 
 Intelligence or vovs. He appears always, on the con- 
 trary, like the genii of Arabian romance, living in 
 clouds, descending on mountains, urging His chosen 
 people to commit the most atrocious crimes, to destroy 
 all the races not professing the same worship, and to 
 exterminate even the child and the unborn infant. 
 Then, I find in the Old Testament no promise of a 
 spiritual Messiah, but only of a temporal king, who, as 
 the Jews believe, is yet to come. The serpent in Genesis
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 67 
 
 has no connection with the spirit of evil, but is de- 
 scribed only as the most subtle beast of the field, and, 
 having injured man, there was to be a perpetual enmity 
 between their races the serpent when able was to bite 
 the heel of the man, and the man when an opportunity 
 occurred was to bruise the head of the serpent. I will 
 allow, if you please, that an instinct of religion or 
 superstition belongs to the human mind, and that the 
 different forms which this instinct assumes depend 
 upon various circumstances and accidents of history 
 and climate ; but I am not sure that the religion of the 
 Jews was superior to that of the Sabaeans who wor- 
 shipped the stars, or the ancient Persians who adored 
 the sun as the visible symbol of divine power, or the 
 eastern nations who in the various forms of the visible 
 universe worshipped the powers and energies of the 
 Divinity. I feel like the ancient Romans with respect 
 to toleration ; I would give a plaoe to all the gods in 
 my Pantheon, but I would not allow the followers of 
 Brahmah or of Christ to quarrel about the modes of 
 incarnation or the superiority of the attributes of their 
 trien God. 
 
 Amb. You have mistaken me, Onuphrio, if you 
 think I am shocked by your opinions ; I have seen too 
 much of the wanderings of human reason ever to be 
 surprised by them, and the views you have adopted are 
 not uncommon amongst young men of very superior 
 talents, who have only slightly examined the evidences 
 of revealed religion. But I am glad to find that you 
 have not adopted the code of infidelity of many of the 
 French revolutionists and of an English school of 
 sceptics, who find in the ancient astronomy all the 
 germs of the worship of the Hebrews, who identify the
 
 68 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 labours of Hercules with those of the Jewish heroes, 
 and who find the life, death and resurrection of the 
 Messiah in the history of the solar day. You, at least, 
 allow the existence of a peculiar religious instinct, or, 
 as you are pleased to call it, superstition, belonging to 
 the human mind, and I have hopes that upon this 
 foundation you will ultimately build up a system of 
 faith not unworthy a philosopher and a Christian. 
 Man, with whatever religious instincts he was created, 
 was intended to communicate with the visible universe 
 by sensations and act upon it by his organs, and in the 
 earliest state of society he was more particularly in- 
 fluenced by his gross senses. Allowing the existence 
 of a supreme Intelligence and His beneficent intentions 
 towards man, the ideas of His presence which He might 
 think fit to impress upon the mind, either for the pur- 
 pose of veneration, or of love, of hope or fear, must 
 have been in harmony with the general train of His 
 sensations I am not sure that I make myself in- 
 telligible. The same infinite power which in an in- 
 stant could create a universe, could of course so modify 
 the ideas of an intellectual being as to give them that 
 form and character most fitted for his existence ; and 
 I suppose in the early state of created man he imagined 
 that he enjoyed the actual presence of the Divinity and 
 heard His voice. I take this to be the first and simplest 
 result of religious instinct. In early times amongst 
 the patriarchs I suppose these ideas were so vivid as to 
 be confounded with impressions ; but as religious in- 
 stinct probably became feebler in their posterity, the 
 vividness of the impressions diminished, and they then 
 became visions or dreams, which with the prophets 
 seem to have constituted inspiration. I do not suppose
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TKAVEL. 69 
 
 that the Supreme Being ever made Himself known to 
 man by a real change in the order of Nature, but that 
 the sensations of men were so modified by their instincts 
 as to induce the belief in His presence. That there 
 was a divine intelligence continually acting upon the 
 race of Seth as his chosen people, is, I think, clearly 
 proved by the events of their history, and also that the 
 early opinions of a small tribe in Judaea were designed 
 for the foundation of the religion of the most active 
 and civilised and powerful nations of the world, and 
 that after a lapse of three thousand years. The manner 
 in which Christianity spread over the world with a 
 few obscure mechanics or fishermen for its promul- 
 gators ; the mode in which it triumphed over paganism 
 even when professed and supported by the power and 
 philosophy of a Julian ; the martyrs who subscribed to 
 the truth of Christianity by shedding their blood for 
 the faith ; the exalted nature of those intellectual men 
 by whom it has been professed who had examined all 
 the depths of nature and exercised the profoundest 
 faculties of thought, such as Newton, Locke, and 
 Hartley, all appear to me strong arguments in favour 
 of revealed religion. I prefer rather founding m> 
 creed upon the fitness of its doctrines than upon his- 
 torical evidences or the nature of its miracles. The 
 Divine Intelligence chooses that men should be con- 
 vinced according to the ordinary train of their sensa- 
 tions, and on all occasions it appears to me more 
 natural that a change should take place in the human 
 mind than in the order of nature. The popular opinion 
 of the people of Judsea was that certain diseases were 
 occasioned by devils taking possession of a human 
 being ; the disease was cured by our Saviour, and this
 
 70 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 in the Gospel is expressed by his casting out devils. 
 But without entering into explanations respecting the 
 historical miracles belonging to Christianity, it is 
 sufficient to say that its truth is attested by a constantly 
 existing miracle, the present state of the Jews, which 
 was predicted by Jesus ; their temple and city were 
 destroyed, and all attempts made to rebuild it have 
 been vain, and they remain the despised and outcasts 
 of the world. 
 
 Onu. But you have not answered my objections 
 with respect to the cruelties exercised by the Jews 
 under the command of Jehovah, which appear to me 
 in opposition to all our views of divine justice. 
 
 Amb. I think even Philalethes will allow that 
 physical and moral diseases are hereditary, and that 
 to destroy a pernicious unbelief or demoniacal worship 
 it was necessary to destroy the whole race root and 
 branch. As an example. I will imagine a certain con- 
 tagious disease which is transmitted by parents to 
 children, and which, like the plague, is communicated 
 to sound persons by contact; to destroy a family of 
 men who would spread this disease over the whole 
 earth would unquestionably be a mercy. Besides, I 
 believe in the immortality of the sentient principle in 
 man ; destruction of life is only a change of existence, 
 and supposing the new existence a superior one it is a 
 gain. To the Supreme Intelligence the death of a 
 million of human beings is the mere circumstance of 
 so many spiritual essences changing their habitations, 
 and is analogous to the myriad millions of larvae that 
 leave their coats and shells behind them and rise into 
 the atmosphere, as flies in a summer day. When man 
 measures the works of the Divine Mind by his own
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 71 
 
 feeble combinations, he must wander in gross error ; 
 the infinite can never be understood by the finite. 
 
 Onu. As far as I caii comprehend your reasoning, 
 the priests of Juggernaut might make the same defence 
 for their idol, and find in such views a fair apology 
 for the destruction of thousands of voluntary victims 
 crushed to pieces by the feet of the sacred elephant. 
 
 Amb. Undoubtedly they might, and I should allow 
 the justness of their defence if I saw in their religion 
 any germs of a divine institution fitted to become, like 
 the religion of Jehovah, the faith of the whole civilised 
 world, embracing the most perfect form of theism and 
 the most refined and exalted morality. I consider the 
 early acts of the Jewish nation as the lowest and rudest 
 steps of a temple raised by the Supreme Being to con- 
 tain the altar of sacrifice to His glory. In the early 
 periods of society rude and uncultivated men could 
 only be acted upon by gross and temporal rewards and 
 punishments ; severe rites and heavy discipline were 
 required to keep the mind in order, and the punishment 
 of the idolatrous nation served as an example for the 
 Jews. When Christianity took the place of Judaism 
 the ideas of the Supreme Being became more pure and 
 abstracted, and the visible attributes of Jehovah and 
 His angels appear to have been less frequently pre- 
 sented to the mind ; yet even for many ages it seemed 
 as if the grossness of our material senses required some 
 assistance from the eye in fixing or perpetuating the 
 character of religious instinct, and the Church to which 
 I belong, and I may say the whole Christian Church in 
 early times, allowed visible images, pictures, statues, 
 and relics as the means of awakening the stronger devo- 
 tional feelings. We have been accused of worshipping
 
 72 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 merely inanimate objects, but this is a very false 
 notion of the nature of our faith ; we regard them 
 merely as vivid characters representing spiritual exist- 
 ences, and we no more worship them than the Pro- 
 testant does his Bible when he kisses it under a solemn 
 religious adjuration. The past, the present, and the 
 future, being the same to the infinite and divine Intel- 
 ligence, and man being created in love for the purposes 
 of happiness, the moral and religious discipline to which 
 he was submitted was in strict couformity to his pro- 
 gressive faculties and to the primary laws of his nature. 
 It is but a rude analogy, yet it is the only one I can 
 find, that of comparing the Supreme Being to a wise 
 and good father who, to secure the well-being of his 
 offspring, is obliged to adopt a system of rewards and 
 punishments in which the senses at first and afterwards 
 the imagination and reason are concerned ; he terrifies 
 them by the example of others, awakens their love of 
 glory by pointing out the distinction and the happiness 
 gained by superior men by adopting a particular line 
 of conduct; he uses at first the rod, and gradually 
 substitutes for it the fear of immediate shame ; and 
 having awakened the fear of shame and the love of 
 praise or honour with respect to temporary and im- 
 mediate actions he extends them to the conduct of the 
 whole of life, and makes what was a momentary feel- 
 ing a permanent and immutable principle. And obedi- 
 ence in the child to the will of such a parent may be 
 compared to faith in and obedience to the will of the 
 Supreme Being ; and a wayward and disobedient child 
 who reasons upon and doubts the utility of the disci- 
 pline of such a father is much in the same state in 
 which the adult man is who doubts if there be good in
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 73 
 
 the decrees of Providence and who questions the har- 
 mony of the plan of the moral universe. 
 
 Onu. Allowing the perfection of your moral scheme 
 of religion and its fitness for the nature of man, I find 
 it impossible to believe the primary doctrines on which 
 this scheme is founded. You make the Divine Mind, 
 the creator of infinite worlds, enter into the form of a 
 man born of a virgin, you make the eternal and im- 
 mortal God the victim of shameful punishment and 
 suffering death on the cross, recovering His life after 
 three days, and carrying His maimed and lacerated 
 body into the heaven of heavens. 
 
 Amb. You, like all other sceptics, make your own 
 interpretations of the Scriptures and set up a standard 
 for divine power in human reason. The infinite and 
 eternal mind, as I said before, fits the doctrines of re- 
 ligion to the minds by which they are to be embraced. 
 I see no improbability in the idea that an integrant 
 part of His essence may have animated a human form ; 
 there can be no doubt that this belief has existed in the 
 human mind, and the belief constitutes the vital part 
 of the religion. We know nothing of the generation 
 of the human being in the ordinary course of nature ; 
 how absurd then to attempt to reason upon the acts of 
 the Divine Mind ! nor is there more difficulty in imagin- 
 ing the event of a divine conception than of a divine 
 creation. To God the infinite, little and great, as 
 measured by human powers, are equal ; a creature of 
 this earth, however humble and insignificant, may have 
 the same weight with millions of superior beings in- 
 habiting higher systems. But I consider all the 
 miraculous parts of our religion as effected by changes 
 in the sensations or ideas of the human mind, and not
 
 74 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 by physical changes in the order of nature ; a mail who 
 has to repair a piece of machinery, as a clock, must 
 take it to pieces, and, in fact, re-make it, but to infinite 
 wisdom and power a change in the intellectual state of 
 the human being may be the result of a momentaiy 
 will, and the mere act of faith may produce the change. 
 How great the powers of imagination are, even in ordi- 
 nary life, is shown by many striking facts, and nothing 
 seems impossible to this imagination when acted upon 
 by divine influence. To attempt to answer all the ob- 
 jections which may be derived from the want of con- 
 formity in the doctrines of Christianity to the usual 
 order of events would be an interminable labour. My 
 first principle is. that religion lias nothing to do with 
 the common order of events ; it is a pure and divine 
 instinct intended to give results to man which he can- 
 not obtain by the common use of his reason, and which 
 at first view often appear contradictory to it, but which 
 when examined by the most refined tests, and considered 
 in the most extensive and profound relations, are, in 
 fact, in conformity with the most exalted intellectual 
 knowledge, so that, indeed, the results of pure reason 
 ultimately become the same with those of faith the 
 tree of knowledge is grafted upon the tree of life, and 
 that fruit which brought the fear of death into the 
 world, budding on an immortal stock, becomes the 
 fruit of the promise of immortality. 
 
 Onu. Yon derive Christianity from Judaism ; I 
 cannot see their connection, and it appears to me that 
 the religion of Mahomet is more naturally a scion from 
 the stock of Moses. Christ was a Jew, and was cir- 
 cumcised ; this rite was continued by Mahomet, and is 
 to this dav adopted by his disciples, though rejected by
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TEAVEL. 7o 
 
 the Christians ; and the doctrines of Mahomet appear 
 to me to have a higher claim to divine origin than those 
 of Jesus ; his morality is as pure, his theism purer, and 
 his system of rewards and punishments after death as 
 much in conformity with our ideas of eternal justice. 
 
 Ami). I will willingly make the decision of the 
 general question dependent upon the decision of this 
 particular one. No attempts have been made by the 
 Mahometans to find any predictions respecting their 
 founder in the Old Testament, and they have never 
 pretended even that he was the Messiah ; therefore, as 
 far as prophecy is concerned, there is no ground for 
 admitting the truth of the religion of Mahomet. It has 
 been the fashion with a particular sect of infidels to 
 praise the morality of the Mahometans, but I think un- 
 justly ; they are said to be honest in their dealings and 
 charitable to those of their own persuasion ; but they 
 allow polygamy and a plurality of women, and are 
 despisers and persecutors of the nations professing a 
 different faith. And what a contrast does this morality 
 present to that of the Gospel which inculcates charity 
 to all mankind, and orders benevolent actions to be 
 performed even to enemies ! and the purity and sim- 
 plicity of the infant is held up by Christ as the model 
 of imitation for His followers. Then, in the rewards 
 and punishments of the future state of the Mahometans, 
 how gross are all the ideas, how unlike the promises of 
 a divine and spiritual being ; their paradise is a mere 
 earthly garden of sensual pleasure, and their Houris 
 represent the ladies of their own harems rather than 
 glorified angelic natures. How different is the Chris- 
 tian heaven, how sublime in its idea, indefinite, yet 
 well suited to a being of intellectual and progressive
 
 76 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 faculties ; " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath 
 it entered into the heart of man to conceive the joys 
 that He hath prepared for those who love Him." 
 
 Onu. I confess your answer to my last argument is 
 a triumphant one ; but I cannot allow a question of 
 such extent and of such a variety of bearings to be 
 decided by so slight an advantage as that which you 
 have gained by this answer. I will now offer another 
 difficulty to you. The law of the Jews, you will allow, 
 was established by God Himself and delivered to 
 Moses from the seat of His glory amongst storms, 
 thunder, and lightnings, on Mount Sinai ; why should 
 this law, if pure and divine, have been overturned by 
 the same Being who established it ? And all the cere- 
 monies of the Hebrews have been abolished by the first 
 Christians. 
 
 Amb. I deny that the divine law of Moses was 
 abolished by Christ, who Himself says, '"' I came to 
 confirm the law, not to destroy it." And the Ten 
 Commandments form the vital parts of the foundation 
 of the creed of the true Christian. It appears that the 
 religion of Christ was the same pure theism with that 
 of the patriarchs ; and the rites and ceremonies estab- 
 lished by Moses seem to have been only adjuncts to the 
 spiritual religion intended to suit a particular climate 
 and a particular state of the Jewish nation, rather a 
 dress or clothing of the religion than forming a con- 
 stituent part of it, a system of discipline of life and 
 manners rather than an essential part of doctrine. The 
 rites of circumcision and ablution were necessary to 
 the health and perhaps even to the existence of a people 
 living on the hottest part of the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean. And in the sacrifices made of the first fruits
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 77 
 
 and of the chosen of the flock, we may see a design not 
 merely connected with the religious faith of the people 
 but even with their political economy. To offer their 
 choicest and best property as a proof of their gratitude 
 to the Supreme Being was a kind of test of devoted- 
 ness and obedience to the theocracy ; and these sacrifices 
 by obliging them to raise more produce and provide 
 more cattle than were essential to their ordinary support, 
 preserved them from the danger of famine, as in case 
 of a dearth it was easy for the priests under the divine 
 permission to apply these offerings to the necessities of 
 the people. All the pure parts of the faith which had 
 descended from Abraham to David were preserved by 
 Jesus Christ; but the ceremonial religion was fitted 
 only for a particular nation and a particular country ; 
 Christianity, on the contrary, was to be the religion of 
 the world and of a civilised and improving world. And 
 it appears to me to be an additional proof of its divine 
 nature and origin, that it is exactly in conformity to 
 the principles of the improvement and perfection of 
 the human mind. When given to a particular race 
 fixed in a peculiar climate, its objects were sensible, its 
 discipline was severe, and its rites and ceremonies 
 numerous and imposing, fitted to act upon weak, ignor- 
 ant, and consequently obstinate men. In its gradual 
 development it threw off its local character and its 
 particular forms, and adopted ceremonies more fitted 
 for mankind in general ; and in its ultimate views, it 
 preserves only pure, spiritual, and I may say philo- 
 sophical doctrines, the unity of the divine nature and a 
 future state, embracing a system of rewards and punish- 
 ments suited to an accountable and immortal being. 
 Phil. I have been attentively listening to your
 
 73 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 discussion. The views which Arnbrosio has taken of 
 Christianity certainly throw a light over it perfectly new 
 to nie ; and, I must say in candour, that I am disposed 
 to adopt his notion of the early state of society rather 
 than that of my Genius. I have always been accustomed 
 to consider religious feeling as instinctive ; but Am- 
 brosio's arguments have given me something approach- 
 ing to a definite faith for an obscure and indefinite 
 notion. I am willing to allow that man was created, 
 not a savage, as he is represented in my vision, but 
 perfect in his faculties and with a variety of instinctive 
 powers and knowledge ; that he transmitted these 
 powers and knowledge to his offspring; but that by 
 an improper use of reason in disobedience to the divine 
 will, the instinctive faculties of most of his descendants 
 became deteriorated and at last lost, but that these 
 faculties were preserved in the race of Abraham and 
 David, and the full power again bestowed upon or 
 recovered by Christ. I am ready to allow the import- 
 ance of religion in cultivating and improving the 
 world ; and Ambrosio's view appears to me capable of 
 being referred to a general law of our nature; and 
 revelation maybe regarded not as a partial interference 
 but as a constant principle belonging to the mind of 
 man. and the belief in supernatural forms and agency, 
 the results of prophecies and the miracles, as one only 
 of the necessary consequences of it. Man. as a reason- 
 ing animal, must always have doubted of his immor- 
 tality and plan of conduct ; in all the results of faith, 
 there is immediate submission to a divine will, which 
 we are sure is good. We may compare the destiny of 
 man in this respect to that of a migratory bird ; if a 
 slow flying bird, as a landrail in the Orkneys in autumn,
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 79 
 
 had reason and could use it as to the probability of his 
 finding his way over deserts, across seas, and of securing 
 his food in passing to a warm climate 3.000 miles oft', 
 he would undoubtedly starve in Europe ; under the 
 direction of his instinct he securely arrives there in 
 good condition. I have allowed the force of your 
 objections to that part of my vision relating to the 
 origin of society, but I hope you will admit that the 
 conclusion of it is not inconsistent with the ideas 
 derived from revelation respecting the future state of 
 the human being. 
 
 Amb. Revelation has not disclosed to us the nature 
 of this state, but only fixed its certainty. We are sure 
 from geological facts, as well as from sacred history, 
 that man is a recent animal on the globe, and that 
 this globe lias undergone one considerable revolution, 
 since the creation, by water ; and we are taught that 
 it is to undergo another, by fire, preparatory to a new 
 and glorified state of existence of man ; but this is all 
 we are permitted to know, and as this state is to be 
 entirely different from the present one of misery and 
 probation, any knowledge respecting it would be useless 
 and indeed almost impossible. 
 
 Phil. My Genius has placed the more exalted spiri- 
 tual natures in cometary worlds, and this last fiery 
 revolution may be produced by the appulse of a comet. 
 
 Amb. Human fancy may imagine a thousand man- 
 ners in which it may be produced, but upon such 
 notions it is absurd to dwell. I will not allow your 
 Genius the slightest approach to inspiration, and I can 
 admit no verisiniility in a reverie which is fixed on a 
 foundation you now allow to be so weak. But see, the 
 twilight is beginning to appear in the orient sky, and
 
 80 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 there are some dark clouds on the horizon opposite to 
 the crater of Vesuvius, the lower edges of which trans- 
 mit a bright light, showing the sun is already risen in 
 the country beneath them. I would say that they may 
 serve as an image of the hopes of immortality derived 
 from revelation ; for we are sure from the light reflected 
 in those clouds that the lands below us are in the 
 brightest sunshine, but we are entirely ignorant of the 
 surface and the scenery ; so, by revelation, the light of 
 an imperishable and glorious world is disclosed to us ; 
 but it is in eternity, and its objects cannot be seen by 
 mortal eye or imaged by mortal imagination. 
 
 Phil. I am not so well read in the Scriptures as I 
 hope I shall be at no very distant time ; but I believe 
 the pleasures of heaven are mentioned more distinctly 
 than you allow in the sacred writings. I think I 
 remember that the saints are said to be crowned with 
 palms and amaranths, and that they are described as 
 perpetually hymning and praising God. 
 
 Amb. This is evidently only metaphorical; music 
 is the sensual pleasure which approaches nearest to an 
 intellectual one, and probably may represent the delight 
 resulting from the perception cf the harmony of things 
 and of truth seen in God. The palm as an evergreen 
 tree and the amaranth a perdurable flower are emblems 
 of immortality. If I am allowed to give a metaphorical 
 allusion to the future state of the blest, I should image 
 it by the orange grove in that sheltered glen, on which 
 the sun is now beginning to shine, and of which the 
 trees are at the same time loaded with sweet golden 
 fruit and balmy silver flowers. Such objects may well 
 portray a state in which hope and fruition become 
 one eternal feeling.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 81 
 
 Onu. This glorious sunrise seems to have made 
 you both poetical Though with the darkest and most 
 gloomy mind of the party I cannot help feeling its 
 influence, I cannot help believing with you that the 
 night of death will be succeeded by a bright morning ; 
 but, as in the scene below us, the objects are nearly 
 the same as they were last evening, with more of 
 brightness and brilliancy, with a fairer prospect in the 
 east and more mist in the west, so I cannot help 
 believing that our new state of existence must bear an 
 analogy to the present one, and that the order of events 
 will not be entirely different. 
 
 Amb. Your view is not an unnatural one ; but I am 
 rejoiced to find some symptoms of a change in your 
 opinions. 
 
 Onu. I wish with all my heart they were stronger ; 
 I begin to feel my reason a weight and my scepticism 
 a very heavy load. Tour discussions have made me a 
 Philo-Christian, but I cannot understand nor embrace 
 all the views you have developed, though I really wish 
 to do so. 
 
 Amb. Tour wish, if sincere, I doubt not will be 
 gratified. Fix your powerful mind upon the harmony 
 of the moral world, as you have been long accustomed 
 to do upon the order of the physical universe, and you 
 will see the scheme of the eternal intelligence develop- 
 ing itself alike in both. Think of the goodness and 
 mercy of omnipotence, and aid your contemplation by 
 devotional feelings and mental prayer and aspirations 
 to the source of all knowledge, and wait with humility 
 for the light which I doubt not will be so produced in 
 your mind. 
 
 Onu. Tou again perplex me ; I cannot believe that
 
 82 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 the adorations or offerings of so feeble a creature can 
 influence the decrees of omnipotence. 
 
 Amb. You mistake me : as to their influencing or 
 affecting the supreme mind it is out of the question, 
 but they affect your own mind, they perpetuate a habit 
 of gratitude and of obedience which may gradually 
 end in perfect faith, they discipline the affections and 
 keep the heart in a state of preparation to receive and 
 preserve all good and pious feelings. Whoever passes 
 from utter darkness into bright sunshine finds that he 
 cannot at first distinguish objects better in one than in 
 the other, but in a feeble light he acquires gradually 
 the power of bearing a brighter one. and gains at last 
 the habit not only of supporting it, but of receiving 
 delight as well as instruction from it. In the pious 
 contemplations that I recommend to you there is the 
 twilight or sober dawn of faith which will ultimately 
 enable you to support the brightness of its meridian sun. 
 
 Onu. I understand you, but your metaphor is more 
 poetical than just ; your discipline, however, I have no 
 doubt, is better fitted to enable me to bear the light 
 than to contemplate it through the smoked or coloured 
 glasses of scepticism. 
 
 Amb. Yes, for they not only diminish its brightness 
 but alter its nature. 
 
 DIALOGUE THE THIRD. 
 
 THE UNKNOWN. 
 
 THE same persons accompanied me in many journeys 
 by land and water to different parts of the Phlegraean 
 fields, and we enjoyed in a most delightful season, the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 83 
 
 beginning of May, the beauties of the glorious country 
 which encloses the Bay of Naples, so rich, so orna- 
 mented with the gifts of nature, so interesting from 
 the monuments it contains and the recollections it 
 awakens. One excursion, the last we made in south- 
 ern Italy, the most important both from the extra- 
 ordinary personage with whom it made me acquainted 
 and his influence upon my future life, merits a par- 
 ticular detail which I shall now deliver to paper. 
 
 It was on the 16th of May, 18 that we left Naples 
 at three in the morning for the purpose of visiting the 
 remains of the temples of Psestmn, and having pro- 
 vided relays of horses we found ourselves at about 
 half -past one o'clock descending the hill of Eboli 
 towards the plain which contains these stupendous 
 monuments of antiquity. Were my existence to be 
 prolonged through ten centuries, I think I could never 
 forget the pleasure I received on that delicious spot. 
 We alighted from our carriage to take some refresh- 
 ment, and we reposed upon the herbage under the 
 shade of a magnificent pine contemplating the view 
 around and below us. On the right were the green 
 hills covered with trees stretching towards Salerno ; 
 beyond them were the marble cliffs which form the 
 southern extremity of the Bay of Sorento ; immedi- 
 ately below our feet was a rich and cultivated country 
 filled with vineyards and abounding in villas, in the 
 gardens of which were seen the olive and the cypress 
 tree connected as if to memorialise how near to each 
 other are life and death, joy and sorrow ; the distant 
 mountains stretching beyond the plain of Passtum 
 were in the full luxuriance of vernal vegetation ; and 
 in the extreme distance, as if in the midst of a desert,
 
 84 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 we saw the white temples glittering in the sunshine. 
 The blue Tyrrhene sea filled up the outline of this 
 scene, which, though so beautiful, was not calm ; there 
 was a heavy breeze which blew full from the south- 
 west ; it was literally a zephyr, and its freshness and 
 strength in the middle of the day were peculiarly balmy 
 and delightful; it seemed a breath stolen by the spring 
 from the summer. I never saw a deeper, brighter 
 azure than that of the waves which rolled towards the 
 shore, and which was rendered more striking by the 
 pure whiteness of their foam. The agitation of nature 
 seemed to be one of breathing and awakening life ; the 
 noise made by the waving of the branches of the pine 
 above our heads and by the rattling of its cones was 
 overpowered by the music of a multitude of birds 
 which sung everywhere in the trees that surrounded 
 us, and the cooing of the turtle-doves was heard even 
 more distinctly than the murmuring of the waves or 
 the whistling of the winds, so that in the strife of 
 nature the voice of love was predominant. With our 
 hearts touched by this extraordinary scene we de- 
 scended to the ruins, and having taken at a farm- 
 house a person who acted as guide or cicerone, we 
 began to examine those wonderful remains which have 
 outlived even the name of the people by whom they 
 were raised, and which continue almost perfect whilst 
 a Roman and a Saracen city since raised have been 
 destroyed. We had been walking for half an hour 
 round the temples in the sunshine when our guide 
 represented to us the danger that there was of suffer- 
 ing from the effects of malaria, for which, as is well 
 known, this place is notorious, and advised us to retire 
 into the interior of the temple of Xeptuue. We f ol-
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 85 
 
 lowed his advice, and my companions began to employ 
 themselves in measuring the circumference of one of 
 the Doric columns, when they suddenly called my 
 attention to a stranger who was sitting on a camp- 
 stool behind it. The appearance of any person in 
 this place at this time was sufficiently remarkable, but 
 the man who was before us from his dress and appear- 
 ance would have been remarkable anywhere. He 
 was employed in writing in a memorandum book when 
 we first saw him, but he immediately rose and saluted 
 us by bending the head slightly though gracefully; 
 and this enabled me to see distinctly his person and 
 dress. He was rather above the middle stature, 
 slender, but with well-turned limbs ; his countenance 
 was remarkably intelligent, his eye hazel but full and 
 strong, his front was smooth and un wrinkled, and but 
 for some grey hairs, which appeared silvering his 
 brown and curly locks, he might have been supposed 
 to have hardly reached the middle age ; his nose was 
 aquiline, the expression of the lower part of his coun- 
 tenance remarkably sweet, and when he spoke to our 
 guide, which he did with uncommon fluency in the 
 Neapolitan dialect, I thought I had never heard a 
 more agreeable voice, sonorous yet gentle and silver- 
 sounded. His dress was very peculiar, almost like 
 that of an ecclesiastic, but coarse and light ; and there 
 was a large soiled white hat on the ground beside him, 
 011 which was fastened a pilgrim's cockle shell, and 
 there was suspended round his neck a long antique 
 blue enamelled phial, like those found in the Greek 
 tombs, and it was attached to a rosary of coarse beads. 
 He took up his hat, and appeared to be retiring to 
 another part of the building, when I apologised for
 
 86 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 the interruption we had given to his studies, begged 
 him to resume them, and assured him that our stay 
 in the building would be only momentary, for I saw 
 that there was a cloud over the sun, the brightness of 
 which was the cause of our retiring. I spoke in 
 Italian ; he replied in English, observing that he sup- 
 posed the fear of contracting the malaria fever had in- 
 duced us to seek the shelter of the shade : but it is too 
 early in the season to have much reasonable fear of 
 this insidious enemy ; yet, he added, this bottle which 
 you may have observed here at my breast, I carry 
 about with me, as a supposed preventive of the 
 effects of malaria, and as far as my experience, a very 
 limited one, however, has gone, it is effectual. I ven- 
 tured to ask him what the bottle might contain, as 
 such a benefit ought to be made known to the world. 
 He replied, " It is a mixture which slowly produces 
 the substance called by chemists chlorine, which is 
 well known to be generally destructive to contagious 
 matters; and a friend of mine who has lived for 
 many years in Italy, and who has made a number of 
 experiments with it, by exposing himself to the danger 
 of fever in the worst seasons and in the worst places, 
 believes that it is a secure preventive. I am not con- 
 vinced of this ; but it can do no harm ; and in waiting 
 for more evidence of its utility, I employ it without 
 putting the least confidence in its power ; nor do I ex- 
 pose myself to the same danger as my friend has done 
 for the sake of an experiment." I said, "I believe 
 several scientific persons Brocchi amongst others 
 have doubted the existence of any specific matter in 
 the atmosphere producing intermittent fevers in marshy 
 countries and hot climates ; and have been more dis-
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 87 
 
 posed to attribute the disease to physical causes, de- 
 pendent upon the great differences of temperature be- 
 tween day and night and to the refrigerating effects of 
 the dense fogs common in sucli situations in the even- 
 ing and morning ; and, on this hypothesis, they have 
 recommended warm woollen clothing and fires at 
 night as the best preventives against these destructive 
 diseases, so fatal to the peasants who remain in the 
 summer and autumn in the neighbourhood of the 
 maremme of Rome, Tuscany, or Naples." The stranger 
 said, " I am acquainted with the opinions of the gentle- 
 men, and they undoubtedly have weight ; but that a 
 specific matter of contagion has not been detected by 
 chemical means in the atmosphere of marshes does not 
 prove its non-existence. We know so little of those 
 agents that affect the human constitution, that it is of 
 no use to reason on this subject. There can be no 
 doubt that the line of malaria above the Pontine 
 marshes is marked by a dense fog morning and even- 
 ing, and most of the old Roman towns were placed 
 upon eminences out of the reach of this fog. I hav? 
 myself experienced a peculiar effect upon the organs of 
 smell in the neighbourhood of marshes in the evening 
 after a very hot day ; and the instances in which people 
 have been seized with intermittents by a single exposure 
 in a place infested by malaria in the season of fevers 
 gives, I think, a strong support to something like a 
 poisonous material existing in the atmosphere in such 
 spots ; but I merely offer doubts. I hope the progress 
 of physiology and of chemistry will at no very distant 
 time solve this important problem." Ambrosio now 
 came forward, and bowing to the stranger, said he took 
 the liberty, as he saw from his familiarity with the
 
 88 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 cicerone that lie was well acquainted with Paestum, of 
 asking him whether the masses of travertine, of which 
 the Cyclopean walls and the temples were formed, were 
 really produced by aqueous deposition from the River 
 Silaro, as he had often heard reported. The stranger 
 replied, " that they were certainly produced by depo- 
 sition from water ; and such deposits are made by the 
 Silaro. But I rather believe," he said, " that a lake in 
 the immediate neighbourhood of the city furnished the 
 quarry from which these stones were excavated; and, 
 in half an hour, if you like, after you have finished 
 your examinations of the temples with your guide, I 
 will accompany you to the spot from which it is evi- 
 dent that large masses of the travertine, marmor tibur- 
 tinuin, or calcareous tufa, have been raised." We 
 thanked him for his attention, accepted his invitation, 
 took the usual walk round the temples, and returned to 
 our new acquaintance, who led the way through the 
 gate of the city to the banks of a pool or lake a short 
 distance off. We walked to the borders on a mass of 
 calcareous tufa, and we saw that this substance had 
 even encrusted the reeds on the shore. There was 
 something peculiarly melancholy in the character of 
 this water; all the herbs around it were grey, as if 
 encrusted with marble ; a few buffaloes were slaking 
 their thirst in it, which ran wildly away on our ap- 
 proach, and appeared to retire into a rocky excavation 
 or quarry at the end of the lake ; there were a number 
 of birds, which, on examination, I found were sea 
 swallows, fiitting on the surface and busily employed 
 with the libella or dragon-fly in destroying the myriads 
 of gnats which rose from the bottom and were beginning 
 to be very troublesome by their bites to us. " There,"
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 89 
 
 said the stranger, " is what I believe to be the source 
 of those large and durable stones which you see in the 
 plain before you. This water rapidly deposits cal- 
 careous matter, and even if you throw a stick into it, a 
 few hours is sufficient to give it a coating of this sub- 
 stance. Whichever way you turn your eyes you see 
 masses of this recently-produced marble, the conse- 
 quence of the overflowing of the lake during the winter 
 floods, and in that large excavation where you saw the 
 buffaloes disappear you may observe that immense 
 masses have been removed, as if by the hand of art and 
 in remote times. The marble that remains in the 
 quarry is of the same texture and character as that 
 which you see in the ruins of Paestum, and I think it 
 is scarcely possible to doubt that the builders of those 
 extraordinary structures derived a part of their ma- 
 terials from this spot." Ambrosio gave his assent to 
 this opinion of the stranger; and I took the liberty of 
 asking him as to the quantity of calcareous matter con- 
 tained in solution in the lake, saying that it appeared 
 to me, for so rapid and considerable an effect of depo- 
 sition, there must be an unusual quantity of solid 
 matter dissolved by the water or some peculiar circum- 
 stance of solution. The stranger replied, " This water 
 is like many, I may say most of the sources which rise 
 at the foot of the Apennines : it holds carbonic acid 
 in solution which has dissolved a portion of the cal- 
 careous matter of the rock through which it has passed. 
 This carbonic acid is dissipated in the atmosphere, and 
 the marble, slowly thrown down, assumes a crystalline 
 form and produces coherent stones. The lake before us 
 is not particularly rich in the quantity of calcareous mat- 
 ter that it contains, for, as I have found by experience.
 
 90 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 a pint of it does not afford more than five or six 
 grains ; but the quantity of fluid and the length of 
 time are sufficient to account for the immense quantities 
 of tufa and rock which in the course of ages have 
 accumulated in this situation." Onuphrio's curiosity 
 was excited by this statement of the stranger, and he 
 said, "May I take the liberty of asking if you have 
 any idea as to the cause of the large quantity of car- 
 bonic acid which you have been so good as to inform 
 us exists in most of the waters in this country ? " The 
 stranger replied, " I certainly have formed an opinion 
 on this subject, which I willingly state to you. It can, 
 I think, be scarcely doubted that there is a source of 
 volcanic fire at no great distance from the surface in 
 the whole of southern Italy : and, this fire acting upon 
 the calcareous rocks of which the Apennines are com- 
 posed, must constantly detach from them carbonic acid, 
 which rising to the sources of the springs, deposited 
 from the waters of the atmosphere, must give them 
 their impregnation and enable them to dissolve cal- 
 careous matter. I need not dwell upon Etna, Vesuvius, 
 or the Lipari Islands to prove that volcanic fires are 
 <till in existence ; and there can be no doubt that in 
 earlier periods almost the whole of Italy was ravaged 
 by them ; even Rome itself, the eternal city, rests upon 
 the craters of extinct volcanoes ; and I imagine that 
 the traditional and fabulous record of the destruction 
 made by the conflagration of Phaeton in the chariot of 
 the sun and his falling into the Fo had reference to a 
 great and tremendous igneous volcanic eruption, which 
 extended over Italy and ceased only near the Po at the 
 foot of the Alps. Be this as it may. the sources of car- 
 bonic acid are numerous, not merely in the Xeapolitan,
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 91 
 
 but likewise in the Roman and Tuscan states. The 
 most magnificent waterfall in Europe, that of the 
 Velino, near Terni, is partly fed by a stream contain- 
 ing calcareous matter dissolved by carbonic acid, and 
 it deposits marble, which crystallises even in the midst 
 of its thundering descent and foam in the bed in which 
 it falls. The Anio or Teverone, which almost ap- 
 proaches in beauty to the Yelino in the number and 
 variety of its falls and cascatelle, is likewise a cal- 
 careous water; and there is still a more remarkable 
 one which empties itself into this river below Tivoli, 
 and which you have probably seen in your excursions 
 in the campagna of Rome, called the lacus Albula or 
 the lake of the Solfatara." Ambrosio said, " We re- 
 member it well, we saw it this very spring ; we were 
 carried there to examine some ancient Roman baths, 
 and we were struck by the blue milkiness of the water, 
 by the magnitude of the source, and by the disagree, 
 able smell of sulphuretted hydrogen which everywhere 
 surrounded the lake." The stranger said, " When 
 you return to Latium I advise you to pay another 
 visit to a spot which is interesting from a number of 
 causes, some of which I will take the liberty of mention- 
 ing to you. You have only seen one lake, that where 
 the ancient Romans erected their baths, but there is 
 another a few yards above it, surrounded by very high 
 rushes, and almost hidden by them from the sight. 
 This lake sends down a considerable stream of tepid 
 water to the larger lake, but this water is less strongly 
 impregnated with carbonic acid ; the largest lake is ac- 
 tually a saturated solution of this gas, which escapes from 
 it in such quantities in some parts of its surface that 
 it has the appearance of being actually in ebullition.
 
 92 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 I have found by experiment that the water taken 
 from the most tranquil part of the lake, even after 
 being agitated and exposed to the air, contained in 
 solution more than its own volume of carbonic acid gas 
 with a very small quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen, 
 to the presence of which, I conclude, its ancient use in 
 curing cutaneous disorders may be referred. Its 
 temperature, I ascertained, was in the winter in the 
 warmest parts above SO 3 of Fahrenheit, and it appears 
 to be pretty constant, for I have found it differ a few 
 degrees only, in the ascending source, in January, 
 March, May, and the beginning of June ; it is there- 
 fore supplied with heat from a subterraneous source, 
 being nearly twenty degrees above the mean tempera- 
 ture of the atmosphere. Kircher has detailed in his 
 " Mundus Subterraneus " various wonders respecting 
 this lake, most of which are unfounded, such as that it 
 is unfathomable, that it has at the bottom the heat of 
 boiling water, and that floating islands rise from the 
 gulf which emits it. It must certainly be very diffi- 
 cult, or even impossible, to fathom a source which 
 rises with so much violence from a subterraneous 
 excavation, and, at a time when chemistry had made 
 small progress, it was easy to mistake the disengage- 
 ment of carbonic acid for an actual ebullition. The 
 floating islands are real, but neither the Jesuit nor any 
 of the writers who have since described this lake had 
 a correct idea of their origin, which is exceedingly 
 curious. The high temperature of this water, and the 
 quantity of carbonic acid that it contains, render it 
 peculiarly fitted to afford a pabulum or nourishment to 
 vegetable life. The banks of travertine are everywhere 
 covered with reeds, lichens, coiifervse, and various
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 93 
 
 kinds of aquatic vegetables, and, at the same time that 
 the process of vegetable life is going on, the crystal- 
 lisations of the calcareous matter, which is everywhere 
 deposited in consequence of the escape of carbonic 
 acid, likewise proceed, giving a constant milkiness to 
 what, from its tint, would otherwise be a blue fluid. 
 So rapid is the vegetation, owing to the decomposition 
 of the carbonic acid, that, even in winter, masses of 
 confervse and lichens, mixed with deposited travertine, 
 are constantly detached by the currents of water from 
 the bank and float down the stream, which being a 
 considerable river is never without many of these 
 small islands on its surface ; they are sometimes only a 
 few inches in size, and composed merely of dark-green 
 confervce or purple or yellow lichens, but they are 
 sometimes even of some feet in diameter, and contain 
 seeds and various species of common water-plants, 
 which are usually more or less encrusted with marble. 
 There is, I believe, no place in the world where there 
 is a more striking example of the opposition or con- 
 trast of the laws of animate and inanimate Xature, of 
 the forces of inorganic chemical affinity and those of 
 the powers of life. Vegetables in such a temperature, 
 and everywhere surrounded by food, are produced with 
 a wonderful rapidity, but the crystallisations are 
 formed with equal quickness, and they are no sooner 
 produced than they are destroyed together. Notwith- 
 standing the sulphureous exhalations from the lake, 
 the quantity of vegetable matter generated there and 
 its heat make it the resort of an infinite variety of 
 insect tribes, and even in the coldest days in winter 
 numbers of flies may be observed on the vegetables 
 surrounding its banks or on its floating islands, and a
 
 94 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 quantity of their larvae may be seen there sometimes 
 encrusted and entirely destroyed by calcareous matter, 
 which is likewise often the fate of the insects them- 
 selves, as well as of various species of shell-fish that 
 are found amongst the vegetables, which grow and are 
 destroyed in the travertine on its banks. Snipes. 
 ducks, and various water-birds, often visit these lakes, 
 probably attracted by the temperature and the quantity 
 of food in which they abound ; but they usually con- 
 fine themselves to the banks, as the carbonic acid dis- 
 engaged from the surface would be fatal to them if 
 they ventured to swim upon it when tranquil. In 
 May, 18 , I fixed a stick on a mass of travertine 
 covered by the water, and I examined it in the begin- 
 ning of the April following for the purpose of deter- 
 mining the nature of the depositions. The water was 
 lower at this 1 time, yet I had some difficulty, by means 
 of a sharp-pointed hammer, in breaking the mass which 
 adhered to the bottom of the stick ; it was several 
 inches in thickness. The upper part was a mixture of 
 light tufa and the leaves of confervae ; below this was 
 a darker and more solid travertine, containing black 
 and decomposed masses of confervas ; in the inferior 
 part the travertine was more solid and of a grey colour, 
 but with cavities which I have no doubt were pro- 
 duced by the decomposition of vegetable matter. I 
 have passed many hours, I may say many days, in 
 studying the phenomena of this wonderful lake ; it has 
 brought many trains of thought into my mind con- 
 nected with the early changes of our globe, and I have 
 sometimes reasoned from the forms of plants and 
 animals preserved in marble in this warm source to the 
 grander depositions in the secondary rocks, where the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 95 
 
 zoophytes or coral insects have worked upon a grand 
 scale, and where palnis, and vegetables now unknown 
 are preserved with the remains of crocodiles, turtles, 
 and gigantic extinct animals of the sauri genus, and 
 which appear to have belonged to a period when the 
 whole globe possessed a much higher temperature. I 
 have, likewise, often been led, from the remarkable 
 phenomena surrounding me in that spot, to compare 
 the works of man with those of Nature. The baths, 
 erected there nearly twenty centuries ago, present 
 only heaps of ruins, and even the bricks of which they 
 were built, though hardened by fire, are crumbled into 
 dust, whilst the masses of travertine around it, though 
 formed by a variable source from the most perishable 
 materials, have hardened by time, and the most perfect 
 remains of the greatest ruins in the eternal city, such 
 as the triumphal arches and the Colosseum, owe their 
 duration to this source. Then, from all we know, this 
 lake, except in some change in its dimensions, con- 
 tinues nearly in the same state in which it was 
 described 1,700 years ago by Pliny, and I have no 
 doubt contains the same kinds of floating islands, the 
 same plants, and the same insects. During the fifteen 
 years that I have known it it has appeared precisely 
 identical in these respects, and yet it has the character 
 of an accidental phenomenon depending upon subterra- 
 neous fire. How marvellous then are those laws by 
 which even the humblest types of organic existence 
 are preserved though born amidst the sources of their 
 destruction, and by which a species of immortality is 
 given to generations floating, as it were, like evanes- 
 cent bubbles, on a stream raised from the deepest 
 caverns of the earth, and instantly losing what may be
 
 96 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 called its spirit in the atmosphere." These last obser- 
 vations of the stranger recalled to my recollection 
 some phenomena which I had observed many years 
 ago, and of which I could then give no satisfactory 
 explanation. I was shooting in the marshes which 
 surround the rains of Gabia, and where there are still 
 remains supposed to be of the Alexandrine aqueduct ; 
 I observed a small insulated hill, apparently entirely 
 composed of travertine, and from its summit there 
 were formations of tufa which had evidently been pro- 
 duced by running water, but the whole mass was now 
 perfectly dry and encrusted by vegetables. At first I 
 suspected that this little mountain had been formed by 
 a jet of calcareous water, a kind of small fountain 
 analogous to the Geiser, which had deposited travertine 
 and continued to rise through the basin flowing from a 
 higher level ; but the irregular form of the eminence 
 did not correspond to this idea, and I remained per- 
 plexed with the fact and unable to satisfy myself as to 
 its cause. The views of the stranger appeared to me 
 now to make it probable that the calcareous water had 
 issued from ancient leaks in the aqueduct and formed 
 a hillock that had encased the bricks of the erection, 
 which in other parts, where not encrusted by traver- 
 tine, had become entirely decayed, degraded, and 
 removed from the soil. I mentioned the circumstance 
 and my suspicion of its nature. The stranger said : 
 " You are perfectly correct in your idea. I know the 
 spot well, and if you had not mentioned it I should 
 probably have quoted it as an instance in which the 
 works of art are preserved, as it were, by the accidents 
 of Nature. I was so struck by this appearance last 
 year that I had the travertine partially removed by
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 97 
 
 some workmen, and I found beneath it the canal of the 
 aqueduct in a perfect state, and the bricks of the 
 arches as uninjured as if freshly laid." The stranger 
 had hardly concluded this sentence when he was in- 
 terrupted by Ouuphrio, who said, "I have always 
 supposed that in every geological system water is con- 
 sidered as the cause of the destruction or degradation 
 of the surface, but in all the instances that you have 
 mentioned it appears rather as a conservative power, 
 not destroying but rather producing." " It is the 
 general vice of philosophical systems," replied the 
 stranger, " that they are usually founded upon a few 
 facts, which they well explain, and are extended by the 
 human fancy to all the phenomena of Nature, to many 
 of which they must be contradictory. The human 
 intellectual powers are so feeble that they can with 
 difficulty embrace a single series of phenomena, and 
 they consequently must fail when extended to the whole 
 of Nature. Water by its common operation, as poured 
 down from the atmosphere in rain and torrents, tends 
 to level and degrade the surface, and carries the material 
 of the land into the bosom of the ocean. Fire, on the 
 contrary, in volcanic eruptions usually raises mountains, 
 exalts the surface, and creates islands even in the 
 midst of the sea. But these laws are not invariable, 
 as the instances to which we have just referred prove, 
 and parts of the surface of the globe are sometimes 
 destroyed even by fire, of which examples may be seen in 
 the Phlegrsean fields, and islands raised by one volcanic 
 eruption have been immerged in the sea by another. 
 There are, in fact, no accidents in Nature ; what we 
 call accidents are the results of general laws in par- 
 ticular operation, but we cannot deduce these laws from 
 D 203
 
 98 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 the particular operation or the general order from the 
 partial result." Ainbrosio said to the stranger : " Yon 
 appear, sir, to have paid so much attention to physical 
 phenomena that few things would give us more pleasure 
 than to know your opinion respecting the early changes 
 and physical history of the globe, for I perceive you do 
 not belong to the modern geological schools." The 
 stranger said, " I have certeanly formed opinions or 
 rather speculations on these subjects, but I fear they 
 are hardly worth communicating ; they have sometimes 
 amused me in hours of idleness, but I doubt if they will 
 amuse others." I said, " The observations which you 
 have already been so kind as to communicate to us, on 
 the formation of the travertine, lead us not only to 
 expect amusement but likewise instruction." 
 
 The Stranger. On these matters I had facts to com- 
 municate ; on the geological scheme of the early history 
 of the globe there are only analogies to guide us, which 
 different minds may apply and interpret in different 
 ways ; but I will not trifle with a long preliminary dis- 
 course. Astronomical deductions and actual measures 
 by triaugulation prove that the globe is an oblate 
 spheroid flattened at the poles, and this form we know, 
 by strict mathematical demonstrations, is precisely the 
 one which a fluid body revolving round its axis, and 
 become solid at its surface by the slow dissipation of 
 its heat or other causes, would assume. I suppose, 
 therefore, that the globe, in the first state in which the 
 imagination can venture to consider it, was a fluid mass 
 with an immense atmosphere revolving in space round 
 the sun, and that by its cooling a portion of its atmo- 
 sphere was condensed in water which occupied a part 
 of the surface. In this state no forms of life such as
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 99 
 
 now belong to our system could have inhabited it ; and, 
 I suppose, the crystalline rocks (or, as they are called 
 by geologists, the primary rocks), which contain no 
 vestiges of a former order of things, were the results 
 of the first consolidation on its surface. Upon the 
 further cooling the water which more or less had 
 covered it contracted, depositions took place, shell -fish 
 and coral insects of the first creation began their 
 labours, and islands appeared in the midst of the 
 ocean raised from the deep by the productive energies 
 of millions of zoophytes. These islands became covered 
 with vegetables fitted to bear a high temperature, such 
 as palms and various species of plants similar to those 
 which now exist in the hottest parts of the world; 
 and the submarine rocks or shores of these new forma- 
 tions of land became covered with aquatic vegetables, 
 on which various species of shell-fish and common 
 fishes found their nourishment. The fluids of the globe 
 in cooling deposited a large quantity of the materials 
 they held in solution, and these deposits agglutinating 
 together the sand, the immense masses of coral rocks, 
 and some of the remains of the shells and fishes found 
 round the shores of the primitive lands, produced the 
 first order of secondary rocks. As the temperature of 
 the globe became lower, species of the oviparous reptiles 
 were created to inhabit it; and the turtle, crocodile, 
 and various gigantic animals of the sauri kind, seem to 
 have haunted the bays and waters of the primitive 
 lands. But in this state of things there was no order 
 of events similar to the present ; the crust of the globe 
 was exceedingly slender, and the source of fire a small 
 distance from the surface. In consequence of contrac- 
 tion in one part of the mass, cavities were opened, which
 
 100 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 caused the entrance of water, and immense volcanic ex- 
 plosions took place, raising one part of the surface, 
 depressing another, producing mountains, and causing 
 new and extensive depositions from the primitive ocean. 
 Changes of this kind must have been extremely frequent 
 in the early epochas of nature, and the only living forms 
 of which the remains are found in the strata that are 
 the monuments of these changes, are those of plants, 
 fishes, birds, and oviparous reptiles, which seem most 
 fitted to exist in such a war of the elements. When 
 these revolutions became less frequent, and the globe 
 became still more cooled, and the inequalities of its 
 temperature preserved by the mountain chains, more 
 perfect animals became its inhabitants, many of which, 
 such as the mammoth, megalonix, megatherium, and 
 gigantic hyena, are now extinct. At this period the 
 temperature of the ocean seems to have been not much 
 higher than it is at present, and the changes produced 
 by occasional eruptions of it have left no consolidated 
 rocks. Yet one of these eruptions appears to have 
 been of great extent and some duration, and seems to 
 have been the cause of those immense quantities of 
 water- worn stones, gravel and sand, which are usually 
 called diluvian remains; and it is probable that this 
 effect was connected with the elevation of a new con- 
 tinent in the southern hemisphere by volcanic fire. 
 When the system of things became so permanent that 
 the tremendous revolutions depending upon the destruc- 
 tion of the equilibrium between the heating and cool- 
 ing agencies were no longer to be dreaded, the creation 
 of man took place ; and since that period there has 
 been little alteration in the physical circumstances of 
 our globe. "Volcanoes sometimes occasion the rise of
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 101 
 
 new islands, portions of the old continents are con- 
 stantly washed by rivers into the sea ; but these changes 
 are too insignificant to affect the destinies of man, or 
 the nature of the physical circumstances of things. On 
 the hypothesis that I have adopted, however, it must be 
 remembered that the present surface of the globe is 
 merely a thin crust surrounding a nucleus of fluid 
 ignited matter, and consequently we can hardly be 
 considered as actually safe from the danger of a cata- 
 strophe by tire. 
 
 Onuphrio said : " From the view you have taken, I 
 conclude that you consider volcanic eruptions as owing 
 to the central fire; indeed, their existence offers, I 
 think, an argument for believing that the interior of 
 the globe is fluid." The stranger answered : " I beg 
 you to consider the views I have been developing as 
 merely hypothetical, one of the many resting places 
 that may be taken by the imagination in considering 
 this subject. There are, however, distinct facts in 
 favour of the idea that the interior of the globe has a 
 higher temperature than the surface ; the heat increasing 
 in mines the deeper we penetrate, and the number of 
 warm sources which rise from great depths in almost 
 all countries, are certainly favourable to the idea. The 
 opinion that volcanoes are owing to this general and 
 simple cause is, I think, likewise more agreeable to the 
 analogies of things than to suppose them dependent 
 upon partial chemical changes, such as the action of 
 air and water upon the combustible bases of the earths 
 and alkalies, though it is extremely probable that these 
 substances may exist beneath the surface, and may 
 occasion some results of volcanic fire; and on this 
 subject my notion r may, perhaps, be more trusted, as 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
 
 102 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 for a long while I thought volcanic eruptions \veiv 
 owing to chemical agencies of the newly discovered 
 metals of the earths and alkalies, and I made many, 
 and some dangerous, experiments in the hope of con- 
 firming this notion, but in vain/"' 
 
 Amb. "We are very much obliged to you for youi- 
 geological illustrations ; but they remind me a little of 
 some of the ideas of our friend Philalethes in his re- 
 markable vision, and with which we may at some time 
 amuse you in return for your geology should we be 
 honoured with more of your company. You are obliged 
 to have recourse to creations for all the living beings 
 in your philosophical romance. I do not see why you 
 should not suppose creations or arrangements of dead 
 matter by the same laws of infinite wisdom, and why 
 our globe should not rise at once a divine work fitted 
 for all the objects of living and intelligent natures. 
 
 The stranger replied : "I have merely attempted a 
 philosophical history founded upon the facts known 
 respecting rocks and strata and the remains they 
 contain. I begin with what may be considered a 
 creation, a fluid globe supplied with an immense atmo- 
 sphere, and the series of phenomena which I imagine 
 consequent to the creation, I supposed produced by 
 powers impressed upon matter by Omnipotence." 
 
 Ambrosio said : " There is this verisimility in your 
 history, that it is not contradictory to the little we are 
 informed by Revelation as to the origin of the globe, 
 the order produced in the chaotic state, and the succes- 
 sion of living forms generated in the days of creation. 
 which may be what philosophers call ' the epochas of 
 nature,' for a day with Omnipotence is as a thousand 
 years, and a thousand years as one day."
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 103 
 
 " I must object," Oimplirio said, " to your interpre- 
 tation of the scientific view of our new acquaintance, 
 and to your disposition to Wend them with the cos- 
 mogony of Moses. Allowing the divine origin of the 
 Book of Genesis, you must admit that it was not in- 
 tended to teach the Jews systems of philosophy, but 
 the laws of life and morals ; and a great man and an 
 exalted Christian raised his voice two centuries ago 
 against this mode of applying and of often wresting 
 the sense of the Scriptures to make them conformable 
 to human fancies ; ' from which,' says Lord Bacon, 
 ' arise not only false and fantastical philosophies, but 
 likewise heretical religions.' If the Scriptures are to 
 be literally interpreted and systems of science found in 
 them, Gallileo Gallilei merited his persecution, and we 
 ought still to believe that the sun turns round the 
 earth." 
 
 Amb. You mistake my view, Onuphrio, if you 
 imagine I am desirous of raising a system of geology 
 on the Book of Genesis. It cannot be doubted that 
 the first man was created with a great variety of 
 instinctive or inspired knowledge, which must have 
 been likewise enjoyed by his descendants ; and some 
 of this knowledge could hardly fail to have related to 
 the globe which he inhabited, and to the objects which 
 surrounded him. It would have been impossible for 
 the human mind to have embraced the mysteries of 
 creation, or to have followed the history of the moving 
 atoms from their chaotic disorder into their arrange- 
 ment in the visible universe, to have seen dead matter 
 assuming the forms of life and animation, and light 
 and power arising out of death and sleep. The ideas 
 therefore transmitted to or presented by Moses
 
 104 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 respecting the origin of the world and of man were of 
 the most simple kind, and such as suited the early state 
 of society ; but, though general and simple truths, they 
 were divine truths, yet clothed in a language and suited 
 to the ideas of a rude and uninstructed people. And. 
 when I state my satisfaction in finding that they are 
 not contradicted by the refined researches of modern 
 geologists, I do not mean to deduce from them a 
 system of science. I believe that light was the crea- 
 tion of an act of the Divine will ; but I do not mean 
 to say that the words, " Let there be light, and there 
 was light," were orally spoken by the Deity, nor do I 
 mean to imply that the modern discoveries respecting 
 light are at all connected with this sublime and mag- 
 nificent passage. 
 
 Onu. Having resided for a long time in Edinburgh, 
 and having heard a number of discussions on the theory 
 of Dr. Hutton, or the plutonic theory of geology, and 
 having been exceedingly struck both by its simplicity 
 and beauty, its harmony with existing facts, and the 
 proofs afforded to it by some beautiful chemical ex- 
 periments, I do not feel disposed immediately to re- 
 nounce it for the views which I have just heard 
 explained ; for the principal facts which our new ac- 
 quaintance has stated are, I think, not inconsistent 
 with the refined philosophical systems of Professor 
 Playfair and Sir James Hall. 
 
 The Unknown. I have no objection to the refined 
 plutonic view, as capable of explaining many existing 
 phenomena; indeed, you must be aware that I have 
 myself had recourse to it. What I contend against 
 is, its application to explain the formations of the 
 secondary rocks, which I think clearly belong to an
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 105 
 
 order of facts not at all embraced by it. In the plu- 
 tonic system there is one simple and constant order 
 assumed, which may be supposed eternal. The surface 
 is constantly imagined to be disintegrated, destroyed, 
 degraded, and washed into the bosom of the ocean by 
 water, and as constantly consolidated, elevated, and 
 regenerated by fire, and the ruins of the old form the 
 foundations of the new world. It is supposed that 
 there are always the same types, both of dead and living 
 matter ; that the remains of rocks, of vegetables, and 
 animals of one age are found embedded in rocks 
 raised from the bottom of the ocean in another. Now, 
 to support this view, not only the remains of living 
 beings which at present people the globe might be 
 expected to be found in the oldest secondary strata, 
 but even those of the arts of man, the most powerful 
 and populous of its inhabitants, which is well known 
 not to be the case. On the contrary, each stratum of 
 the secondary rocks contains remains of peculiar and 
 mostly now unknown species of vegetables and animals. 
 In those strata which are deepest, and which must con- 
 sequently be supposed to be the earliest deposited, 
 forms even of vegetable life are rare ; shells and veget- 
 able remains are found in the next order; the bones 
 of fishes and oviparous reptiles exist in the following 
 class; the remains of birds, with those of the same 
 genera mentioned before, in the next order ; those of 
 quadrupeds of extinct species, in a still more recent 
 class; and it is only in the loose and slightly con- 
 solidated strata of gravel and sand, and which are 
 usually called diluvian formations, that the remains of 
 animals such as now people the globe are found, with 
 others belonging to extinct species. But in none of
 
 106 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 these formations, whether called secondary, tertiary, or 
 diluvial, have the remains of man or any of his works 
 been discovered. It is, I think, impossible to consider 
 the organic remains found in any of the earlier secon- 
 dary strata, the lias-limestone and its congenerous 
 formations for instance, without being convinced that 
 the beings, whose organs they formed, belonged to an 
 order of things entirely different from the present. 
 Gigantic vegetables, more nearly allied to the palms of 
 the equatorial countries than to any other plants, can 
 only be imagined to have lived in a very high tem- 
 perature ; and the immense reptiles, the megalosauri 
 with paddles instead of legs and clothed in mail, in 
 size equal or even superior to the whale ; and the great 
 amphibia, plethiosauri, with bodies like turtles, but 
 furnished with necks longer than their bodies, probably 
 to enable them to feed on vegetables growing in the 
 shallows of the primitive ocean, seem to show a state 
 in which low lands or extensive shores rose above an 
 immense calm sea, and when there were no great moun- 
 tain chains to produce inequalities of temperature? 
 tempests, or storms. Were the surface of the earth 
 now to be carried down into the depths of the ocean, 
 or were some great revolution of the waters to cover 
 the existing land, and it was again to be elevated by 
 fire, covered with consolidated depositions of sand or 
 mud, how entirely different would it be in its characters 
 from any of the secondary strata. Its great features 
 would undoubtedly be the works of man hewn stones, 
 and statues of bronze and marble, and tools of iron 
 and human remains would be more common than those 
 of animals on the greatest part of the surface; the 
 columns of Paestum or cf Agrigentum, or the immense
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 107 
 
 iron and granite bridges of the Thames, would offer a 
 striking contrast to the bones of the crocodiles or 
 sauri in the older rocks, or even to those of the 
 mammoth or elephas primogenius in the diluvial strata. 
 And whoever dwells upon this subject must be convinced 
 that the present order of things, and the comparatively 
 recent existence of man as the master of the globe, is 
 as certain as the destruction of a former and a different 
 order and the extinction of a number of living forms 
 which have now no types in being, and which have left 
 their remains wonderful monuments of the revolutions 
 of Nature. 
 
 Onu. I am not quite convinced by your arguments. 
 Supposing the lands of New Holland were to be 
 washed into the depths of the ocean, and to be raised 
 according to the Huttonian view, as a secondary 
 stratum, by subterraneous fire, they would contain the 
 remains of both vegetables and animals entirely dif- 
 ferent from any found in the strata of the old con- 
 tinents ; and may not those peculiar formations to 
 which you have referred be, as it were, accidents of 
 Nature belonging to peculiar parts of the globe ? And 
 you speak of a diluvian formation, which I conclude 
 you would identify with that belonging to the cata- 
 strophe described in the sacred writings, in which no 
 human remains are found. Now, you surely will not 
 deny that man existed at the time of this catastrophe, 
 and he consequently may have existed at the period of 
 the other revolutions, which are supposed to be pro- 
 duced in the Huttonian views by subterraneous fire. 
 
 The Unknown. I have made use of the term "diluvian," 
 because it has been adopted by geologists, but without 
 meaning to identify the cause of the formations with
 
 108 CONSOLATIONS IN TBAVEL. 
 
 the deluge described in the sacred writings. 1 apply 
 the term merely to signify loose and water-worn strata 
 not at all consolidated, and deposited by an inundation 
 of water, and in these countries which they have 
 covered man certainly did not exist. With respect to 
 your argument derived from New Holland, it appears 
 to me to be without weight. In a variety of climates, 
 and in very distant parts of the globe, secondary strata 
 of the same order are found, and they contain always 
 the same kind of organic remains, which are entirely 
 different from any of those now afforded by beings 
 belonging to the existing order of things. The cata- 
 strophes which produced the secondary strata and di- 
 luvian depositions could not have been local and partial 
 phenomena, but must have extended over the whole, or 
 a great part of the surface, of the globe. The remains 
 of similar shell-fishes are found in the limestones of 
 the old and new continents ; the teeth of the mammoth 
 are not uncommon in various parts of Europe ; entire 
 skeletons have been found in America, and even the 
 skin covered with hair and the entire body of one of 
 these enormous extinct animals has been discovered in 
 Siberia preserved in a mass of ice. In the oldest 
 secondary strata there are no remains of such animals 
 as now belong to the surface ; and in the rocks which 
 may be regarded as more recently deposited, these 
 remains occur but rarely, aiid with abundance of extinct 
 species. There seems, as it were, a gradual approach 
 to the present system of things, and a succession of 
 destructions and creations preparatory to the existence 
 of man. It will be useless to push these arguments 
 farther. You must allow that it is impossible to 
 defend the proposition, that the present order of things
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 109 
 
 is the ancient and constant order of Nature, only 
 modified by existing laws, and, consequently, the view 
 which you have supported must be abandoned. The 
 monuments of extinct generations of animals are as 
 perfect as those of extinct nations ; and it would be 
 more reasonable to suppose that the pillars and temples 
 of Palmyra were raised by the wandering Arabs of 
 the desert, than to imagine that the vestiges of peculiar 
 animated forms in the strata beneath the surface be- 
 longed to the early and infant families of the beings 
 that at present inhabit it. 
 
 Onu. I am convinced. I shall push my arguments 
 no further, for I will not support the sophisms of that 
 school which supposes that living nature has under- 
 gone gradual changes by the effects of its irritabilities 
 and appetencies ; that the fish has in millions of genera- 
 tions ripened into the quadruped, and the quadruped 
 into the man ; and that the system of life by its own 
 inherent powers has fitted itself to the physical changes 
 in the system of the universe. To this absurd, vague, 
 atheistical doctrine, I prefer even the dream of plastic 
 powers, or that other more modern dream, that the 
 secondary strata were created, filled with remains, as 
 it were, of animal life, to confound the speculations of 
 our geological reasoners. 
 
 The Unknown. I am glad you have not retreated 
 into the desert and defenceless wilderness of scepticism, 
 or of false and feeble philosophy. I should not have 
 thought it worth my while to have followed you there ; 
 I should as soon think of arguing with the peasant who 
 informs me that the basaltic columns of Antrim or of 
 Staff a were the works of human art and raised by the 
 giant Finmacoul.
 
 110 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 At this moment, one of our servants came to inform 
 me that a dinner which had been preparing for us at 
 the farmhouse was ready ; we asked the stranger to 
 do us the honour to partake of our repast ; he assented, 
 and the following conversation took place at table. 
 
 Phil. In reflecting upon our discussions this morn- 
 ing, I cannot help being a little surprised at their 
 nature ; we have been talking only of geological systems, 
 when a more natural subject for our conversation 
 would have been these magnificent temples, and an 
 inquiry into the race by whom they were raised and 
 the gods to whom they were dedicated. "SYe are now 
 treading on a spot which contains the bones of a highly 
 civilised and powerful people ; yet we are almost 
 ignorant of the names they bore, and the period of 
 their greatness is lost in the obscurity of time. 
 
 Amb. There can be no doubt that the early inhabi- 
 tants of this city were Grecians and a maritime and 
 commercial people ; they have been supposed to belong 
 to the Sybarite race, and the roses producing flowers 
 twice a year in the spring and autumn in ancient times 
 here, might sanction the idea that this balmy spot was 
 chosen by a colony who carried luxury and refinement 
 to the highest pitch. 
 
 Onu. To attempt to form any opinion with respect 
 to the people that anciently inhabited these now deserted 
 plains is useless and a vain labour. In the geological 
 conversation which took place before dinner, some 
 series of interesting facts were presented to us ; and 
 the monuments of Nature, though they do not speak a 
 distinct language, yet speak an intelligible one ; but 
 with respest to Paestum, there is neither history nor 
 tradition to guide us ; and we shall do wisely to resume
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. Ill 
 
 onr philosophical inquiries, if we have not already 
 exhausted the patience of our new guest by doubts or 
 objections to his views. 
 
 The Stranger. One of you referred in our conversa- 
 tion this morning to a vision, which had some relation 
 to the subject of our discussion, and I was promised 
 some information on this matter. 
 
 I immediately gave a sketch of my vision, and of 
 the opinions which had been expressed by Ambrosio 
 on the early history of man, and the termination of our 
 discussions on religion. 
 
 The Stranger. I agree with Ambrosio in opinion 
 on the subjects you have just mentioned. In my youth, 
 I was a sceptic ; and this I believe is usually the case 
 with young persons given to general and discursive 
 reading, and accustomed to adopt something like a 
 mathematical form in their reasonings ; and it was in 
 considering the nature of the intellectual faculties 
 of brutes, as compared with those of man, and in 
 examining the nature of instinctive powers, that I 
 became a believer. After I had formed the idea that 
 Revelation was to man in the place of an instinct, my 
 faith constantly became stronger; and it was exalted 
 by many circumstances I had occasion to witness in a 
 journey that I made through Egypt and a part of Asia 
 Minor, and by no one more than by a very remarkable 
 dream which occurred to me in Palestine, and which, 
 as we are now almost at the hour of the siesta, I will 
 relate to you. though perhaps you will be asleep before 
 [ have finished it. I was walking along that deserted 
 shore which contains the ruins of Ptolemais, one of 
 the most ancient ports of Judaea. It was evening ; the 
 sun was sinking in the sea ; I seated myself on a rock,
 
 112 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 lost in melancholy contemplations on the destinies of a 
 spot once so famous in the history of man. The calm 
 Mediterranean, bright in the glowing light of the west, 
 was the only object before me. " These waves," I said 
 to myself, "once bore the ships of the monarch of 
 Jerusalem which were freighted with the riches of the 
 East to adorn and honour the sanctuary of Jehovah ; 
 here are now no remains of greatness or of commerce ; 
 a few red stones and broken bricks only mark what 
 might have been once a flourishing port, and the citadel 
 above, raised by the Saracens, is filled with Turkish 
 soldiers." The janissary, who was my guide, and my 
 servant, were preparing some food for me in a tent 
 which had been raised for the purpose, and whilst 
 waiting for their summons to my repast, I continued 
 my reveries, which must gradually have ended in 
 slumber. I saw a man approaching towards me, whom, 
 at first, I took for niy janissary, but as he came nearer 
 I found a very different figure. He was a very old man 
 with a beard as white as snow ; his countenance was 
 dark but paler than that of an Arab, and his features 
 stern, wild, and with a peculiar savage expression ; his 
 form was gigantic, but his arms were withered and 
 there was a large scar on the left side of his face which 
 seemed to have deprived him of an eye. He wore a 
 black turban and black flowing robes, and there was a 
 large chain round his waist which clanked as he moved. 
 It occurred to me that he was one of the santons or 
 sacred madmen so common in the East, and I retired 
 as he approached towards me. He called out: "Fly 
 not, stranger ; fear me not, I will not harm you. You 
 shall hear my story, it may be useful to you." He 
 spoke in Arabic but in a peculiar dialect and to me
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 113 
 
 new, yet I understood every word. " You see before 
 you," he said, " a man who was educated a Christian, 
 but who renounced the worship of the one supreme 
 God for the superstitions of the pagans. I became an 
 apostate in the reign of the Emperor Julian, and I was 
 employed by that Sovereign to superintend the re-erec- 
 tion of the temple of Jerusalem, by which it was 
 intended to belie the prophecies and give the death- 
 blow to the holy religion. History has informed you 
 of the result : my assistants were most of them de- 
 stroyed in a tremendous storm, I was blasted by light- 
 ning from heaven (he raised his withered hand to his 
 face and eye), but suffered to live and expiate my crime 
 in the flesh. My life has been spent in constant and 
 severe penance, and in that suffering of the spirit 
 produced by guilt, and is to be continued as long as any 
 part of the temple of Jupiter, in which I renounced my 
 faith, remains in this place. I have lived through fifteen 
 tedious centuries, but I trust in the mercies of Omni- 
 potence, and I hope my atonement is completed. I now 
 stand in the dust of the pagan temple. You have just 
 thrown the last fragment of it over the rock. My time 
 is arrived, I come ! " As he spake the last words, he 
 rushed towards the sea. threw himself from the rock 
 and disappeared. I heard no struggling, and saw 
 nothing but a gleam of light from the wave that closed 
 above him. I was now roused by the cries of my 
 servant and of the janissary, who were shaking my 
 arm, and who informed me that my sleep was so sound 
 that they were alarmed for me. When I looked on 
 the sea, there was the same light, and I seemed to see 
 the very spot in the wave where the old man had sunk. 
 I was so struck by the vision, that I asked if they had
 
 114 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 not seen something dash into the wave, and if they had 
 not heard somebody speaking to me as they arrived. 
 Of course their answers were negative. In passing 
 through Jerusalem and in coasting the Dead Sea I had 
 been exceedingly struck by the present state of Judaea 
 and the conformity of the fate of the Jewish nation to 
 the predictions of our Saviour; I had likewise been 
 reading Gibbon's eulogy of Julian, and his account of 
 the attempts made by that Emperor to rebuild the 
 temple : so that the dream at such a time and in such 
 a place was not an unnatural.occurrence. Yet it was so 
 vivid, and the image of the subject of it so peculiar, 
 that it long affected my imagination, and whenever I 
 recurred to it, strengthened my faith. 
 
 Onu. I believe all the narratives of apparitions and 
 ghost stories are founded upon dreams of the same 
 kind as that which occurred to you : an ideal repre- 
 sentation of events in the local situation in which the 
 person is at the moment, and when the imaginary 
 picture of the place in sleep exactly coincides with its 
 reality in waking. 
 
 The Stranger. I agree with you in your opinion. 
 If my servant had not been with me, and my dream 
 had been a little less improbable, it would have been 
 difficult to have persuaded me tl <* ! : I had not been 
 visited by an apparition. 
 
 I mentioned the dream of Brutus, and said, " His 
 supposed evil genius appeared in his tent ; had the 
 philosophical hero dreamt that his genius had appeared 
 to him in Rome, there could have been no delusion." 
 I cited the similar vision, recorded of Dion before his 
 death, by Plutarch, of a gigantic female, one of the 
 fates or furies, who was supposed to have been seen
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 115 
 
 by him when reposing in the portico of his palace. I 
 referred likewise to my own vision of the beautiful 
 female, the guardian angel of my recovery, who always 
 seemed to me to be present at my bedside. 
 
 Amb. In confirmation of this opinion of Onuphrio, 
 I can mention many instances. I once dreamt that 
 my door had been forced, that there were robbers in 
 my room, and that one of them was actually putting 
 his hand before my mouth to ascertain if I was sleep- 
 ing naturally. I awoke at this moment, and was some 
 minutes before I could be sure whether it was a dream 
 or a reality. I felt the pressure of the bedclothes on 
 my lips, and still in the fear of being murdered con. 
 tinned to keep my eyes closed and to breathe slowly, 
 till, hearing nothing and finding no motion, I ventured 
 to open my eyes ; but even then, when I saw nothing, 
 I was not sure that my impression was a dream till I 
 had risen from my bed and ascertained that the door 
 was still locked. 
 
 Gnu. I am the only one of the party unable to 
 record any dreams of the vivid and peculiar nature 
 you mention from my own experience ; I conclude it 
 is owing to the dulness of my imagination. I suppose 
 the more intense power of reverie is a symptom of the 
 poetical temperament ; and perhaps, if I possessed 
 more enthusiasm, I should always have possessed 
 more of the religious instinct. To adopt the idea of 
 Philalethes of hereditary character, I fear my fore- 
 fathers have not been correct in their faith. 
 
 Amb, Your glory will be greater in establishing a 
 new character, and I trust even the conversation of 
 this day has given you an additional reason to adopt 
 our faith.
 
 116 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 A mbrosio spoke these words with an earnestness 
 unusual in him, and with something of a tone which 
 marked a zeal for proselytism, and at the same 
 time he cast his eyes on the rosary which was 
 suspended round the neck of the stranger, and 
 said, '' I hope I am not indiscreet in saying our 
 faith." 
 
 The Stranger. I was educated in the ritual of the 
 church of England ; I belong to the Church of Christ : 
 the rosary which you see suspended round my neck 
 is a memorial of sympathy and respect for an illus- 
 trious man. I will, if you will allow me, give you the 
 history of it, which, I think from the circumstances 
 with which it is connected, you will not find devoid of 
 interest. I was passing through France in the reign 
 of Napoleon, by the peculiar privilege granted to a 
 scavan, on my road into Italy. I had just returned 
 from the Holy Land, and had in my possession two or 
 three of the rosaries which are sold to pilgrims 
 at Jerusalem as having been suspended in the Holy 
 Sepulchre. Pius VII. was then in imprisonment at 
 Fontainebleau. By a special favour, on the plea of my 
 return from the Holy Land, I obtained permission to 
 see this venerable and illustrious Pontiff. I carried 
 with me one of my rosaries. He received me with 
 great kindness. I tendered my services to execute any 
 commissions, not political ones, he might think fit to 
 entrust me with in Italy, informing him that I was an 
 Englishman. He expressed his thanks, but declined 
 troubling me. I told him I was just returned from 
 the Holy Land, and bowing with great humility, 
 offered to him my rosary from the Holy Sepulchre. 
 He received it with a sinile, touched it with his lips,
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 117 
 
 gave his benediction over it, and returned it into my 
 hands, supposing, of course, that I was a Roman 
 Catholic. I had meant to present it to his Holiness, 
 but the blessing he had bestowed upon it and the 
 touch of his lips, made it a precious relic to me and 
 I restored it to my neck, round which it has ever since 
 been suspended. He asked me some unimportant 
 questions respecting the state of the Christians at 
 Jerusalem ; and on a sudden, turned the subject, much 
 to my surprise, to the destruction of the French in 
 Russia, and in an exceedingly low tone of voice, as if 
 afraid of being overheard, he said, " The nefas has 
 long been triumphant over the fas, but I do not doubt 
 that the balance of things is even now restoring ; that 
 God will vindicate his Church, clear his polluted altars, 
 and establish society upon its permanent basis of 
 justice and faith. We shall meet again. Adieu ! " and 
 he gave me his paternal blessing. It was eighteen 
 months after this interview, that I went out with 
 almost the whole population of Rome, to receive and 
 welcome the triumphal entry of this illustrious father 
 of the Church into his capital. He was borne on the 
 shoulders of the most distinguished artists, headed by 
 Canova ; and never shall I forget the enthusiasm with 
 which he was received it is impossible to describe 
 the shouts of triumph and of rapture sent up to heaven 
 by every voice. And when he gave his benediction to 
 the people, there was an universal prostration, a 
 sobbing and marks of emotions of joy almost like the 
 bursting of the heart. I heard, everywhere around 
 me, cries of '' The holy Father ! The most holy Father ! 
 His restoration is the work of God ! " I saw tears 
 streaming from the eyes of almost all the women
 
 118 CONSOLATIONS IN TEAVEL. 
 
 about me, many of them were sobbing hysterically, 
 and old men were weeping as if they had been 
 children. I pressed my rosary to my breast on this 
 occasion, and repeatedly touched with nay lips that 
 part of it which had received the kiss of the most 
 venerable Pontiff. I preserve it with a kind of hal- 
 lowed feeling, as the memorial of a man whose 
 sanctity, firmness, meekness and benevolence are au 
 honour to his Church and to human nature ; and it has 
 not only been useful to me, by its influence upon my 
 own mind, but it has enabled me to give pleasure to 
 others, and has, I believe, been sometimes beneficial in 
 insuring my personal safety. I have often gratified 
 the peasants of Apulia and Calabria by presenting 
 them to kiss a rosary from the Holy Sepulchre which 
 had been hallowed by the touch of the lips and bene- 
 diction of the Pope ; and it has been even respected 
 by and procured me a safe passage through a party of 
 brigands who once stopped me in the passes of the 
 Apennines. 
 
 Onu. The use you have made of this relic puts me 
 in mind of a device of a very ingenious geological 
 philosopher now living. He was on Etna and busily 
 employed in making a collection of the lavas formed 
 from the igneous currents of that mountain; the 
 peasants were often troublesome to him, suspecting 
 that he was searching for treasures. It occurred to 
 him to make the following speech to them : " I have 
 been a great sinner in my youth and, as a penance, I 
 have made a vow to carry away with me pieces of every 
 kind of stoue found upon the mountain ; permit me 
 quietly to perform my pious duty, that I may receive 
 absolution for my sins." The speech produced the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 110 
 
 desired effect ; the peasants shouted, " The holy man ! 
 The saint ! " and gave him every assistance in their 
 power to enable him to carry off his burthen, and he 
 made his ample collections with the utmost security 
 and in the most agreeable manner. 
 
 The Stranger. I do not approve of pious frauds 
 even for philosophical purposes ; my rosary excited in 
 others the same kind of feeling which it excited in my 
 own bosom, and which I hold to be perfectly justifiable, 
 and of which I shall never be ashamed. 
 
 Amb. You must have travelled in Italy in very 
 dangerous times ; have you always been secure ? 
 
 The Stranger. Always ; I have owed my security, 
 partly, as I have said, to my rosary, but more to my 
 dress and my acquaintance with the dialect of the 
 natives. I have always carried with me a peasant as a 
 guide, who has been intrusted with the small sums of 
 money I wanted for my immediate purposes, and my 
 baggage has been little more than a Cynic philosopher 
 would have carried with him ; and when I have been 
 unable to walk, I have trusted myself to the conduct 
 of a vetturino, a native of the province, with his single 
 mule and caratella. 
 
 The sun was now setting and the temple of Neptune 
 was glowing with its last purple rays. We were 
 informed that our horses were waiting, and that it was 
 time for us to depart to our lodgings at Eboli. I asked 
 the stranger to be our companion and to do us the 
 honour to accept of a seat in our carriage. He declined 
 the invitation, and said : " My bed is prepared in the 
 casina here for this night, and to-morrow I proceed on 
 a journey connected with scientific objects in the parts 
 of Calabria the scene of the terrible earthquakes of
 
 120 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 1783." I held out my hand to him in parting ; he gave 
 it a strong and warm pressure, and said, " Adieu ! we 
 shall meet again." 
 
 DIALOGUE THE FOURTH. 
 
 THE PROTEUS, OK IMMORTALITY. 
 
 THE impression made upon my mind by the stranger 
 with whom we became acquainted at Psestum was of 
 the strongest and most extraordinary kind. The 
 memory of his person, his dress, his manners, the 
 accents of his voice, and the tone of his philosophy, for 
 a long while haunted my imagination in a most un- 
 accountable manner, and even formed a part of my 
 dreams. It often occurred to me that this was not the 
 first time that I had seen him ; and I endeavoured, but 
 in vain, to find some type or image of him in former 
 scenes of my life. I continually made inquiries respect- 
 ing him amongst my acquaintance, but I could never 
 be sure that any of them knew him, or even had seen 
 him. So great were his peculiarities, that he must have 
 escaped observation altogether ; for, had he entered the 
 world at all, he must have made some noise in it. I 
 expressed so much interest on this subject, that at last 
 it became a source of ridicule amongst my acquaintance, 
 who often asked me if I had not yet obtained news of 
 my spirit-friend or ghost-seer. 
 
 After my return from Naples to Rome, I was almost 
 immediately recalled to England by a melancholy event 
 the death of a very near and dear relation and I 
 left my two friends, Ambrosio and Onuphrio, to pursue 
 their travels, which were intended to be of some extent 
 and duration.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 121 
 
 In my youth, and through the prime of manhood, I 
 never entered London without feelings of pleasure and 
 hope. It was to me as the grand theatre of intellectual 
 activity, the field of every species of enterprise and 
 exertion, the metropolis of the world of business, 
 thought, and action. There I was sure to find the 
 friends and companions of my youth, to hear the voice 
 of encouragement and praise. There, society of the 
 most refined kind offered daily its banquets to the 
 mind with such variety that satiety had no place in 
 them, and new objects of interest and ambition were 
 constantly exciting attention either in politics, litera- 
 ture, or science. 
 
 I now entered this great city in a very different tone 
 of mind one of settled melancholy ; not merely pro- 
 duced by the mournful event which recalled me to my 
 country, but owing, likewise, to an entire change in the 
 condition of nay physical, moral, and intellectual being. 
 My health was gone, my ambition was satisfied, I was 
 no longer excited by the desire of distinction ; what I 
 regarded most tenderly was in the grave, and, to take 
 a metaphor derived from the change produced by time 
 in the juice of the grape, my cup of life was no longer 
 sparkling, sweet, and effervescent; it had lost its 
 sweetness without losing its power, and it had become 
 bitter. 
 
 After passing a few months in England and enjoying 
 (as much as I could enjoy anything) the society of the 
 few friends who still remained alive, the desire of 
 travel again seized me. I had preserved amidst the 
 wreck of time one feeling strong and unbroken : the 
 love of natural scenery; and this, in advanced life, 
 formed a principal motive for my plans of conduct and
 
 122 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL, 
 
 action. Of all the climates of Europe, England seems 
 to me most fitted for the activity of the mind, and the 
 least suited to repose. The alterations of a climate so 
 various and rapid continually awake new sensations ; 
 and the changes in the sky from, dryness to moisture, 
 from the blue ethereal to cloudiness and fogs, seem to 
 keep the nervous system in a constant state of disturb- 
 ance. In the mild climate of Xice, Naples, or Sicily, 
 where even in winter it is possible to enjoy the warmth 
 of the snnshine in the open air, beneath palm trees or 
 amidst evergreen groves of orange trees covered with 
 odorous fruit and sweet-scented leaves, mere existence 
 is a pleasure, and even the pains of disease are some- 
 times forgotten amidst the balmy influence of nature, 
 and a series of agreeable and uninterrupted sensations 
 invite to repose and oblivion. But in the changeful 
 and tumultuous atmosphere of England, to be tranquil 
 is a labour, and employment is necessary to ward off 
 the attacks of ennui. The English as a nation is pre- 
 eminently active, and the natives of no other country 
 follow their objects with so much force, fire, and 
 constancy. And, as human powers are limited, there 
 are few examples of very distinguished men living in 
 this country to old age : they usually fail, droop, and 
 die before they have attained the period naturally 
 marked for the end of human existence. The lives of 
 our statesmen, warriors, poets, and even philosophers 
 offer abundant proofs of the truth of this opinion ; 
 whatever burns, consumes ashes remain. Before the 
 period of youth is passed, grey hairs usually cover those 
 brows which are adorned with the civic oak or the 
 laurel ; and in the luxurious and exciting life of the 
 man of pleasure, their tints are not even preserved by
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 123 
 
 the myrtle wreath or the garland of roses from the pre- 
 mature winter of time. 
 
 In selecting the scenes for my new journey I was 
 guided by my former experience. I know no country 
 more beautiful than that which may be called the 
 Alpine country of Austria, including the Alps of the 
 southern Tyrol, those of Illyria, the Noric and the 
 Julian Alps, and the Alps of Styria and Salzburg. 
 The variety of the scenery, the verdure of the meadows 
 and trees, the depths of the valleys, the altitude of the 
 mountains, the clearness and grandeur of the rivers 
 and lakes give it, I think, a decided superiority over 
 Switzerland ; and the people are far more agreeable. 
 Various in their costumes and manners, Illyrians, 
 Italians, or Germans, they have all the same simplicity 
 of character, and are all distinguished by their love of 
 their country, their devotion to their sovereign, the 
 warmth and purity of their faith, their honesty, and 
 (with very few exceptions) I may say their great 
 civility and courtesy to strangers. 
 
 In the prime of life I had visited this region in a 
 society which afforded me the pleasures of intellectual 
 friendship and the delights of refined affection ; later 
 I had left the burning summer of Italy and the violence 
 of an unhealthy passion, and had found coolness, shade, 
 repose, and tranquillity there ; in a still more advanced 
 period I had sought for and found consolation, and 
 partly recovered my health after a dangerous illness, 
 the consequence of labour and mental agitation ; there 
 I had found the spirit of my early vision. I was de- 
 sirous, therefore, of again passing some time in these 
 scenes in the hope of re-establishing a broken consti- 
 tution ; and though this hope was a feeble one, yet at
 
 124 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 least I expected to spend a few of the last days of life 
 more tranquilly and more agreeably than in the me- 
 tropolis of my own country. Nature never deceives 
 us. The rocks, the mountains, the streams always speak 
 the same language. A shower of snow may hide the 
 verdant woods in spring, a thunder-storm may render 
 the blue limpid streams foul and turbulent ; but these 
 effects are rare and transient : in a few hours or at least 
 days all the sources of beauty are renovated. And 
 Nature affords no continued trains of misfortunes and 
 miseries, such as depend upon the constitution of 
 humanity ; no hopes for ever blighted in the bud ; no 
 beings full of life, beauty, and promise taken from us 
 in the prime of youth. Her fruits are all balmy, bright, 
 and sweet; she affords none of those blighted ones so 
 common in the life of man and so like the fabled apples 
 of the Dead Sea fresh and beautiful to the sight, but 
 when tasted full of bitterness and ashes. I have 
 already mentioned the strong effect produced on my 
 mind by the stranger whom I had met so accidentally 
 at Psestum ; the hope of seeing him again was another 
 of my motives for wishing to leave England, and (why, 
 I know not) I had a decided presentiment that I was 
 more likely to meet him in the Austrian states than in 
 England, his own country. 
 
 For this journey I had one companion, an early friend 
 and medical adviser. He had lived much in the world, 
 had acquired a considerable fortune, had given up his 
 profession, was now retired, and sought, like myself, 
 in this journey repose of mind and the pleasures de- 
 rived from natural scenery. He was a man of a very 
 powerful and acute understanding, but had less of the 
 poetical temperament than any person whom I had ever
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 125 
 
 known with similar vivacity of mind. He was a severe 
 thinker, with great variety of information, an excellent 
 physiologist, and an accomplished naturalist. In his 
 reasonings he adopted the precision of a geometer, and 
 was always upon his guard against the influence of 
 imagination. He had passed the meridian of life, and 
 his health was weak, like my own, so that we were well 
 suited as travelling companions, moving always slowly 
 from place to place without hurry or fatigue. I shall 
 call this friend Eubathes. I will say nothing of the 
 progress of our journey through France and Germany ; 
 I shall dwell only upon that part of it which has still 
 a strong interest for me, and where events occurred 
 that I shall never forget. We passed into the Alpine 
 country of Austria by Lintz, on the Danube, and fol- 
 lowed the course of the Traun to Gmiinden, on the 
 Traun See or lake of the Traun, where we halted for 
 some days. If I were disposed to indulge in minute 
 picturesque descriptions I might occupy hours with 
 details of the various characters of the enchanting 
 scenery in this neighbourhood. The vales have that 
 pastoral beauty and constant verdure which is so 
 familiar to us in England, with similar enclosures and 
 hedge-rows and fruit and forest trees. Above are 
 noble hills planted with beeches and oaks. Mountains 
 bound the view, here covered with pines and larches, 
 there raising their marble crests capped with eternal 
 snows above the clouds. The lower part of the Traun 
 See is always, even in the most rainy season, perfectly 
 pellucid ; and the Traun pours out of it over ledges of 
 rocks a large and magnificent river, beautifully clear and 
 of the purest tint of the beryl. The fall of the Traun, 
 about ten miles below G-miinden, was one of our
 
 126 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 favourite haunts. It is a cataract which, when the 
 river is full, may be almost compared to that of Schaff- 
 hausen for magnitude, and possesses the same peculiar 
 characters of grandeur in the precipitous rush of its 
 awful and overpowering waters, and of beauty in the 
 tints of its streams and foam, and in the forms of the 
 rocks over which it falls, and the cliffs and woods by 
 which it is overhung. In this spot an accident, which 
 had nearly been fatal to me, occasioned the renewal of 
 my acquaintance in an extraordinary manner with the 
 mysterious unknown stranger. Eubathes, who was 
 very fond of fly-fishing, was amusing himself by catch- 
 ing graylings for our dinner in the stream above the 
 fall. I took one of the boats which are used for de- 
 scending the canal or lock artificially cut in the rock 
 by the side of the fall, on which salt and wood are 
 usually transported from Upper Austria to the Danube; 
 and I desired two of the peasants to assist my servant 
 in permitting the boat to descend by a rope to the level 
 of the river below. My intention was to amuse myself 
 by this rapid species of locomotion along the descend- 
 ing sluice. For some moments the boat glided gently 
 along the smooth current, and I enjoyed the beauty of 
 the moving scene around me, and had my eye fixed 
 upon the bright rainbow seen upon the spray of the 
 cataract above my head ; when I was suddenly roused 
 by a shout of alarm from my servant, and, looking 
 round, I saw that the piece of wood to which the rope 
 had been attached had given way, and the boat was 
 floating down the river at the mercy of the stream. I 
 was not at first alarmed, for I saw that my assistants 
 were procuring long poles with which it appeared easy 
 to arrest the boat before it entered the rapidly descend-
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 12 / 
 
 ing water of the sluice, and I called out to them to use 
 their united force to reach the longest pole across the 
 water that I might be able to catch the end of it in my 
 hand. And at this moment I felt perfect security; 
 but a breeze of wind suddenly came down the valley 
 and blew from the nearest bank, the boat was turned 
 by it out of the side current and thrown nearer to the 
 middle of the river, and I soon saw that I was likely 
 to be precipitated over the cataract. My servant arid 
 the boatmen rushed into the water, but it was too deep 
 to enable them to reach the boat ; I was soon in the 
 white water of the descending stream, and my danger 
 was inevitable. I had presence of mind enough to con- 
 sider whether my chance of safety would be greater by 
 throwing myself out of the boat or by remaining in it, 
 and I preferred the latter expedient. I looked from 
 the rainbow upon the bright sun above my head, as if 
 taking leave for ever of that glorious luminary ; I 
 raised one pious aspiration to the divine source of light 
 and life ; I was immediately stunned by the thunder of 
 the fall, and my eyes were closed in darkness. How 
 long I remained insensible I know not. My first re- 
 collections after this accident were of a bright light 
 shining above me, of warmth and pressure in different 
 parts of my body, and of the noise of the rushing 
 cataract sounding in my ears. I seemed awakened 
 by the light from a sound sleep, and endeavoured to 
 recall my scattered thoughts, but in vain ; I soon fell 
 again into slumber. From this second sleep I was 
 awakened by a voice which seemed not altogether un- 
 known to me, and looking upwards I saw the bright 
 eye and noble countenance of the Unknown Strange i- 
 whom I had met at Psestuin. I faintly articulated : " I
 
 128 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 am in another world." " Xo/' said the stranger, " yon 
 are safe in this ; you are a little bruised by your fall, 
 but you will soon be well ; be tranquil and compose 
 yourself. Tour friend is here, and you will want no 
 other assistance than he can easily give you." He then 
 took one of my hands, and I recognised the same strong 
 and warm pressure which I had felt from his parting 
 salute at Paestum. Eubathes, whom I now saw with 
 an expression of joy and of warmth unusual to him, 
 gave a hearty shake to the other hand, and they both 
 said, " You must repose a few hours longer." After a 
 sound sleep till the evening, I was able to take some 
 refreshment, and found little inconvenience from the 
 accident except some bruises on the lower part of the 
 body and a slight swimming in the head. The next 
 day I was able to return to Gmunden, where I learnt 
 from the Unknown the history of my escape, which 
 seemed almost miraculous to me. He said that he was 
 often in the habit of combining pursuits of natural 
 history with the amusements derived from rural sports, 
 and was fishing the day that my accident happened 
 below the fall of the Traun for that peculiar species of 
 the large salmo of the Danube which, fortunately for 
 me, is only to be caught by very strong tackle. He 
 saw, to his very great astonishment and alarm, the 
 boat and my body precipitated by the fall, and was so 
 fortunate as to entangle his hooks in a part of my 
 dress when I had been scarcely more than a minute 
 under water, and by the assistance of his servant, who 
 was armed with the gaff or curved hook for landing 
 large fish, I was safely conveyed to the shore, undressed, 
 put into a warm bed, and by the modes of restoring 
 suspended animation, which were familiar to him, I
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 129 
 
 soon recovered my sensibility and consciousness. I 
 was desirous of reasoning with him and Eubathes upon 
 the state of annihilation of power and transient death 
 which I had suffered when in the water ; but they both 
 requested me to defer those inquiries, which required 
 too profound an exertion of thought, till the effects of- 
 the shock on my weak constitution were over and my 
 strength was somewhat re-established ; and I was the 
 more contented to comply with their request as the 
 Unknown said it was his intention to be our companion 
 for at least some days longer, and that his objects of 
 pursuit lay in the very country in which we were 
 making our summer tour. It was some weeks before 
 I was sufficiently strong to proceed on our journey, for 
 my frame was little fitted to bear such a trial as that 
 which it had experienced ; and, considering the weak 
 state of my body when I was immerged in the water, I 
 could hardly avoid regarding my recovery as provi- 
 dential, and the presence and assistance of the Stranger 
 as in some way connected with the future destiny and 
 utility of my life. In the middle of August we pur- 
 sued our plans of travel. We first visited those 
 romantic lakes, Hallsstadt, Aussee, and Toplitz See, 
 which collect the melted snows of the higher mountains 
 of Styria to supply the unfailing sources of the Trauu. 
 We visited that elevated region of the Tyrol which 
 forms the crest of the Pusterthal, and where the same 
 chains of glaciers send down streams to the Drave and 
 the Adige, to the Black Sea and to the Adriatic. We 
 remained for many days in those two magnificent 
 valleys which afford the sources of the Save, where 
 that glorious and abundant river rises, as it were, in the 
 very bosom of beauty, leaping from its subterraneous 
 E 203
 
 130 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 reservoirs iu the snowy mountains of Terglou and 
 Mauhardt in thundering cataracts amongst cliffs and 
 woods into the pure and deep cerulean lakes of 
 "Wochain and Wurzen, and pursuing its course amidst 
 pastoral meadows so ornamented with plants and trees 
 as to look the garden of Nature. The subsoil or strata 
 of this part of Illyria are entirely calcareous and full 
 of subterranean caverns, so that in every declivity 
 large funnel-shaped cavities, like the craters of vol- 
 canoes, may be seen, in which the waters that fall from 
 the atmosphere are lost ; and almost every lake or river 
 has a subterraneous source, and often a subterraneous 
 exit. The Laibach river rises twice from the limestone 
 rock, and is twice again swallowed up by the earth 
 before it makes its final appearance and is lost in the 
 Save. The Zirknitz See or Lake is a mass of water 
 entirely filled and emptied by subterraneous sources, 
 and its natural history, thougli singular, has in it 
 nothing of either prodigy, mystery, or wonder. The 
 Grotto of the Maddalena at Adelsberg occupied more 
 of our attention than the Zirkuitz See. I shall give 
 the conversation that took place in that extraordinary 
 cavern entire, as well as I can remember it, in the 
 words used by my companions. 
 
 Eub. We must be many hundred feet below the 
 surface, yet the temperature of this cavern is fresh and 
 agreeable. 
 
 The Unknown. This cavern has the mean tempera- 
 ture of the atmosphere, which is the case with all 
 subterraneous cavities removed from the influence of 
 the solar light and heat ; and, in so hot a day in August 
 as this, 1 know no more agreeable or salutary manner 
 of Baking a cold bath than in descending to a part of
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 131 
 
 the atmosphere out of the influence of those causes 
 which occasion its elevated temperature. 
 
 Eub. Have you, sir, been in this country before ? 
 
 The Unknown. This is the third summer that I 
 have made it the scene of an annual visit. Independ- 
 ently of the natural beauties found in Illyria, and the 
 various sources of amusement which a traveller fond 
 of natural history may find in this region, it has had a 
 peculiar object of interest for me in the extraordinary 
 animals which are found in the bottom of its subter- 
 raneous cavities : I allude to the Proteus anguinus, a 
 far greater wonder of nature than any of those which 
 the Baron Valvasa detailed to the Royal Society a 
 century and half ago as belonging to Carniola, with far 
 too romantic an air for a philosopher. 
 
 Phil. I have seen these animals in passing through 
 this country before ; but I should be very glad to be 
 better acquainted with their natural history. 
 
 The Unknown. We shall soon be in that part of the 
 grotto where they are found, and I shall willingly com- 
 municate the little that I have been able to learn re- 
 specting their natural characters and habits. 
 
 Eub. The grotto now becomes really magnificent ; 
 I have seen no subterraneous cavity with so many 
 traits of beauty and of grandeur. The irregularity of 
 its surface, the magnitude of the masses broken in 
 pieces which compose its sides, and which seem torn 
 from the bosom of the mountain by some great convul- 
 sion of nature, their dark colours and deep shades form 
 a singular contrast with the beauty, uniformity, I may 
 say, order and grace of the white stalactical concre- 
 tions which hang from the canopy above, and where the 
 light of our torches reflected from the brilliant or
 
 132 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 transparent calcareous gems create a scene which al- 
 most looks like one produced by enchantment. 
 
 Phil. If the awful chasms of dark masses of rock 
 surrounding us appear like the work of demons who 
 might be imagined to have risen from the centre of 
 the earth, the beautiful works of Xature above our 
 heads may be compared to a scenic representation of a 
 temple or banquet-hall for fairies or genii, such as 
 those fabled in the Arabian romances. 
 
 The Unknown. A poet might certainly place here 
 the palace of the King of the Gnomes, and might find 
 marks of his creative power in the small lake close by 
 on which the flame of the torch is now falling, for 
 there it is that I expect to find the extraordinary 
 animals which have been so long the objects of my 
 attention. 
 
 Eub. I see three or four creatures, like slender fish, 
 moving on the mud below the water. 
 
 The Unknown. I see them; they are the Protei. 
 Now I have them in my fishing-net, and now they are 
 safe in the pitcher of water. At first view you might 
 suppose this animal to be a lizard, but it has the 
 motions of a fish. Its head and the lower part of ite 
 body and its tail bear a strong resemblance to those 
 of the eel ; but it has no fins, and its curious bronchial 
 organs are not like the gills of fishes: they form a 
 singular vascular structure, as you see, almost like a 
 crest, round the throat, which may be removed with- 
 out occasioning the death of the animal, which is like- 
 wise furnished with lungs. With this double apparatus 
 for supplying air to the blood, it can live either below 
 or above the surface of the water. Its fore-feet re- 
 semble hands, bat they have only three claws or fingers,
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 133 
 
 and are too feeble to be of use in grasping or sup- 
 porting the weight of the animal ; the hinder feet have 
 only two claws or toes, and in the larger specimens 
 are found so imperfect as to be almost obliterated. 
 It has small points in place of eyes, as if to preserve 
 the analogy of Nature. It is of a fleshy whiteness 
 and transparency in its natural state; but when ex- 
 posed to light, its skin gradually becomes darker, and 
 at last gains an olive tint. Its nasal organs appear 
 large, and it is abundantly furnished with teeth : from 
 which it may be concluded that it is an animal of 
 prey ; yet in its confined state it has never been known 
 to eat, and it has been kept alive for many years by 
 occasionally changing the water in which it was placed. 
 
 Eub. Is this the only place in Carniola where these 
 animals are found ? 
 
 The Unknown. They were first discovered here by 
 the late Baron Zois ; but they have since been found, 
 though rarely, at Sittich, about thirty miles distant, 
 thrown up by water from a subterraneous cavity ; and 
 I have lately heard it reported that some individuals 
 of the same species have been recognised in the cal- 
 careous strata in Sicily. 
 
 Eub. This lake in which we have seen these animals 
 is a very small one. Do you suppose they are bred 
 here ? 
 
 The Unknown. Certainly not. In dry seasons they 
 are seldom found here, but after great rains they are 
 often abundant. I think it cannot be doubted that 
 their natural residence is in an extensive deep sub- 
 terranean lake, from which in great floods they some- 
 times are forced through the crevices of the rocks into 
 this place where they are found ; and it does not
 
 134 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 appear to me impossible, when the peculiar nature of 
 the country in which we are is considered, that the 
 same great cavity may furnish the individuals which 
 have been found at Adelsberg and at Sittich. 
 
 Eiib. This is a very extraordinary view of the 
 subject. Is it not possible that it may be the larva 
 of some large unknown animal inhabiting these lime- 
 stone cavities ? Its feet are not in harmony with the 
 rest of its organisation; and were they removed, it 
 would have all the characters of a fish. 
 
 The Unknown. I cannot suppose that they are 
 larvae. There is, I believe, in Nature no instance of a 
 transition by this species of metamorphosis from a 
 more perfect to a less perfect animal. The tadpole 
 has a resemblance to a fish before it becomes a frog ; 
 the caterpillar and the maggot gain not only more 
 perfect powers of motion on the earth in their new 
 state, but acquire organs by which they inhabit a new 
 element. This animal, I dare say, is much larger than 
 we now see it when mature in its native place ; but its 
 comparative anatomy is exceedingly hostile to the idea 
 that it is an animal in a state of transition. It has 
 been found of various sizes, from that of the thickness 
 of a quill to that of the thumb, but its form of organs 
 has been always the same. It is surely a perfect 
 animal of a peculiar species. And it adds one instance 
 more to the number already known of the wonderful 
 manner in which life is produced and perpetuated in 
 every part of our globe, even in places which seem the 
 least suited to organised existences. And the same 
 infinite power and wisdom which has fitted the camel 
 and the ostrich for the deserts of Africa, the swallow 
 that secretes its own nest for the caves of Java, the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 135 
 
 whale for the Polar seas, and the morse and white bear 
 for the Arctic ice, has given the proteus to the deep 
 and dark subterraneous lakes of Illyria an animal to 
 whom the presence of light is not essential, and who 
 can live indifferently in air and in water, on the 
 surface of the rock, or in the depths of the mud. 
 
 Phil. It is now ten years since I first visited this 
 spot. I was exceedingly anxious to see the proteus, 
 and came here with the guide in the evening of the 
 day I arrived at Adelsberg ; but though we examined 
 the bottom of the cave with the greatest care, we could 
 find no specimens. We returned the next morning 
 and were more fortunate, for we discovered five close 
 to the bank on the mud covering the bottom of the 
 lake ; the mud was smooth and perfectly undisturbed, 
 and the water quite clear. This fact of their appear- 
 ance during the night seemed to me so extraordinary, 
 that I could hardly avoid the fancy that they were 
 new creations. I saw no cavities through which they 
 could have entered, and the undisturbed state of the 
 lake seemed to give weight to my notion. My reveries 
 became discursive ; I was carried in imagination back 
 to the primitive state of the globe, when the great 
 animals of the sauri kind were created under the pres- 
 sure of a heavy atmosphere ; and my notion on this 
 subject was not destroyed when I heard from a cele- 
 brated anatomist, to whom I sent the specimens I had 
 collected, that the organisation of the spine of the 
 proteus was analogous to that of one of the sauri, the 
 remains of which are found in the older secondary 
 strata. It was said at this time that no organs of re- 
 production had been discovered in any of the specimens 
 examined by physiologists, and this lent a weight to
 
 136 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 my opinion of the possibility of their being actually 
 new creations, which I suppose you will condemn as 
 wholly visionary and unphilosophical. 
 
 Eub. From the tone in which you make your state- 
 ments, I think you yourself consider them as unworthy 
 of discussion. On such ground eels might be con- 
 sidered new creations, for their mature ovaria have not 
 yet been discovered, and they come from the sea into 
 rivers under circumstances when it is difficult to trace 
 their course. 
 
 The Unknown. The problem of the reproduction of 
 the proteus, like that of the common eel, is not yet 
 solved ; but ovaria have been discovered in animals of 
 botli species, and in this instance, as in all others be- 
 longing to the existing order of things, Harvey's 
 maxim of " omne vivum ab ovo " will apply. 
 
 Eub. You just now said that this animal has been 
 long an object of attention to you; have you studied it 
 as a comparative anatomist, in search of the solution of 
 the problem of its reproduction ? 
 
 The Unknown. No ; this inquiry has been pursued 
 by much abler investigators : by Schreiber and Con- 
 figliachi ; my researches were made upon its respiration 
 and the changes occasioned in water by its bronchiae. 
 
 Eub. I hope they have been satisfactory. 
 
 The Unknmcn. They proved to me, at least, that 
 not merely the oxygen dissolved in water, but likewise 
 a part of the azote, was absorbed in the respiration of 
 this animal. 
 
 Eub. So that your researches confirm those of the 
 French savants and Alexander von Huinboldt, that in 
 the respiration of animals which separate air from 
 water, both principles of the atmosphere are absorbed.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 137 
 
 Phil. I have heard so many and such various 
 opinions on the nature of the function of respiration 
 during my education and since, that I should like to 
 know what is the modern doctrine on this subject. I 
 can hardly refer to better authority than yourself, and 
 I have an additional reason for wishing for some 
 accurate knowledge on this matter, having, as you well 
 know, been the subject of an experiment in relation to 
 it which, but for your kind and active assistance, must 
 have terminated fatally. 
 
 The Unknown. I shall gladly state what I know, 
 which is very little. In physics and in chemistry, the 
 science of dead matter, we possess many facts and a 
 few principles or laws ; but whenever the functions of 
 life are considered, though the facts are numerous, yet 
 there is, as yet, scarcely any approach to general laws, 
 and we must usually end where we begin by confessing 
 our entire ignorance. 
 
 Eub. I will not allow this ignorance to be entire. 
 Something, undoubtedly, has been gained by the know- 
 ledge of the circulation of the blood and its aeration in 
 the lungs these, if not laws, are at least fundamental 
 principles. 
 
 The Unknown. I speak only of the functions in 
 their connection with life. We are still ignorant of the 
 source of animal heat, though half a century ago the 
 chemists thought they had proved it was owing to a 
 sort of combustion of the carbon of the blood. 
 
 Phil. As we return to our inn I hope you will both 
 be so good as give me your views of the nature of this 
 function, so important to all living things ; tell me what 
 you know, or what you believe, or what others imagine 
 they know.
 
 138 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 The Unknown. The powers of the organic system 
 depend upon a continued state of change. The waste of 
 the body produced in muscular action, perspiration, 
 aud various secretions, is made up for by the constant 
 supply of nutritive matter to the blood by the absorb- 
 ents, and by the action of the heart the blood is 
 preserved in perpetual motion through every part of 
 the body. In the lungs, or bronchia, the venous blood 
 is exposed to the influence of air and undergoes a 
 remarkable change, being converted into arterial blood. 
 The obvious chemical alteration of the air is sufficiently 
 simple in this process : a certain quantity of carbon 
 only is added to it, and it receives an addition of heat 
 or vapour ; the volumes of elastic fluid inspired and 
 expired (making allowance for change of temperature) 
 are the same, and if ponderable agents only were to be 
 regarded it would appear as if the only use of respira- 
 tion were to free the blood from a certain quantity of 
 carbonaceous matter. But it is probable that this is 
 only a secondary object, and that the change produced 
 by respiration upon the blood is of a much more 
 important kind. Oxygen, in its elastic state, has 
 properties which are very characteristic : it gives out 
 light by compression, which is not certainly known to 
 be the case with any other elastic fluid except those 
 with which oxygen has entered without undergoing 
 combustion ; and from the fire it produces in certain 
 processes, and from the manner in which it is separated 
 lay positive electricity in the gaseous state from its 
 combinations, it is not easy to avoid the supposition 
 that it contains, besides its ponderable elements, some 
 very subtle matter which is capable of assuming the 
 form of heat and light. My idea is that the common
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 139 
 
 air inspired enters into the venous blood entire, in a 
 state of dissolution, carrying with it its subtle or 
 ethereal part, which in ordinary cases of chemical 
 change is given off; that it expels from the blood 
 carbonic acid gas and azote ; and that in the course of 
 the circulation its ethereal part and its ponderable part 
 undergo changes which belong to laws that cannot be 
 considered as chemical the ethereal part probably 
 producing animal heat and other effects, and the 
 ponderable part contributing to form carbonic acid and 
 other products. The arterial blood is necessary to all 
 the functions of life, and it is no less connected with 
 the irritability of the muscles and the sensibility of 
 the nerves than with the performance of all the secre- 
 tions. 
 
 Eub. No one can be more convinced than I am of 
 the very limited extent of our knowledge in chemical 
 physiology, and when I say that, having been a disciple 
 and friend of Dr. Black, I am still disposed to prefer 
 his ancient view to your new one, I wish merely to 
 induce you to pause and to hear my reasons ; they may 
 appear insufficient to you, but I am anxious to explain 
 them. First, then, in all known chemical changes in 
 which oxygen gas is absorbed and carbonic acid gas 
 formed, heat is produced. I could mention a thousand 
 instances, from the combustion of wood or spirits of 
 wine to the fermentation of fruit or the putrefaction of 
 animal matter. This general fact, which may be 
 almost called a law, is in favour of the view of Dr. 
 Black. Another circumstance in favour of it is, that 
 those animals which possess the highest temperature 
 consume the greatest quantity of air, and, under dif- 
 ferent circumstances of action and repose, the heat is in
 
 140 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 great measure proportional to the quantity of oxygen 
 consumed. Then those animals which absorb the 
 smallest quantity of air are cold-blooded. Another 
 argument in favour' of Dr. Black's opinion is the change 
 of colour of blood from black to red, which seems to 
 show that it loses carbon. 
 
 The Unknown. With the highest respect for the 
 memory of Dr. Black, and for the opinion of his 
 disciple, I shall answer the arguments I have just 
 heard. I will not allow any facts or laws from the 
 action of dead matter to apply to living structures ; 
 the blood is a living fluid, and of this we are sure that 
 it does not burn in respiration. The terms warmth 
 and cold, as applied to the blood of animals, are im- 
 proper in the sense in which they have been just used ; 
 all animals are, in fact, warm-blooded, and the degrees 
 of their temperature are fitted to the circumstances 
 under which they live, and those animals, the life of 
 which is most active, possess most heat, which may be 
 the result of general actions, and not a particular effect 
 of respiration. Besides, a distinguished physiologist 
 has rendered it probable that the animal heat depends 
 more upon the functions of the nerves than upon any 
 result of respiration. The argument derived from 
 change of colour is perfectly delusive ; it would not 
 follow if carbon were liberated from the blood that it 
 must necessarily become brighter ; sulphur combining 
 with charcoal becomes a clear fluid, and a black oxide 
 of copper becomes red in uniting with a substance 
 which abounds in carbon. No change in sensible 
 qualities can ever indicate with precision the nature of 
 chemical change. 
 
 I shall resume my view, which I cannot be said to
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 141 
 
 have fully developed. When I stated that carbonic acid 
 was formed in the venous blood in the processes of life, 
 I meant merely to say that this blood, in consequence 
 of certain changes, became capable of giving off carbon 
 and oxygen in union with each other, for the moment 
 inorganic matter enters into the composition of living 
 organs it obeys new laws. The action of the gastric 
 juice is chemical, and it will only dissolve dead matters, 
 and it dissolves them when they are in tubes of metal 
 as well as in the stomach, but it has no action upon 
 living matter. Respiration is no more a chemical 
 process than the absorption of chyle ; and the changes 
 that take place in the lungs, though they appear so 
 simple, may be very complicated ; it is as little philo- 
 sophical to consider them as a mere combustion of 
 carbon as to consider the formation of muscle from 
 the arterial blood as crystallisation. There can be no 
 doubt that all the powers and agencies of matter are 
 employed in the purposes of organisation, but the 
 phenomena of organisation can no more be referred to 
 chemistry than those of chemistry to mechanics. As 
 oxygen stands in that electrical relation to the other 
 elements of animal matter which has been called electro- 
 positive, it may be supposed that some electrical 
 function is exercised by oxygen in the blood ; but this 
 is a mere hypothesis. An attempt has been made 
 founded on experiments on the decomposition of bodies 
 by electricity to explain secretion by weak electrical 
 powers, and to suppose the glands electrical organs, 
 and even to imagine the action of the nerves dependent 
 upon electricity; these, like all other notions of the 
 same kind, appear to me very little refined. If electrical 
 effects be the exhibition of certain powers belonging to
 
 142 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 matter, which is a fair supposition, then no change can 
 take place without their being more or less concerned ; 
 but to imagine the presence of electricity to solve 
 phenomena the cause of which is unknown is merely 
 to substitute one undefined word for another. In some 
 animals electrical organs are found, but then they 
 furnish the artillery of the animal and means of seizing 
 its prey and of its defence. And speculations of this 
 kind must be ranked with those belonging to some of 
 the more superficial followers of the Newtonian philo- 
 sophy, who explained the properties of animated nature 
 by mechanical powers, and muscular action by the 
 expansion and contraction of elastic bladders ; man, 
 in this state of vague philosophical inquiry, was sup- 
 posed a species of hydraulic machine. And when the 
 pneumatic chemistry was invented, organic structures 
 were soon imagined to be laboratories in which com- 
 binations and decompositions produced all the effects 
 of living actions ; then muscular contractions were 
 supposed to depend upon explosions like those of the 
 detonating compounds, and the formation of blood from 
 chyle was considered as a pure chemical solution. And, 
 now that the progress of science has opened new and 
 extraordinary views in electricity, these views are not 
 unnaturally applied by speculative reasouers to solve 
 some of the mysterious and recondite phenomena of 
 organised beings. But the analogy is too remote and 
 incorrect ; the sources of life cannot be grasped by 
 such machinery ; to look for them in the powers of 
 e)c,tro-chemistry is seeking the living among the dead : 
 that which touches will not be felt, that which sees 
 will not be visible, that which commands sensations 
 will not be their subject.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 143 
 
 Phil. 1 conclude, from what you last said, that 
 though you are inclined to believe that some unknown 
 subtle matter is added to the organised system by 
 respiration, yet you would not have us believe that 
 this is electricity, or that there is any reason to suppose 
 that electricity has a peculiar and special share in 
 producing the functions of life. 
 
 The Unknown. I wish to guard you against the 
 adoption of any hypothesis on this recondite and abstruse 
 subject. But however difficult it may be to define the 
 exact nature of respiration, yet the effect of it and its 
 connexions with the functions of the body are suf- 
 ficiently striking. By the action of air on the blood it 
 is fitted for the purposes of life, and from the moment 
 that animation is marked by sensation or volition, this 
 function is performed, the punctum saliens in the ovum 
 seems to receive as it were the breath of life in the 
 influence of air. In the economy of the reproduction 
 of the species of animals, one of the most important 
 circumstances is the aeration of the ovum, and when 
 this is not performed, from the blood of the mother as 
 in the mammalia by the placenta, there is a system for 
 aerating as in the oviparous reptiles or fishes, which 
 enables the air freely to pass through the receptacles 
 in which the eggs are deposited, or the egg itself is 
 aerated out of the body through its coats or shell, and 
 when air is excluded, incubation or artificial heat has 
 no effect. Fishes which deposit their eggs in water 
 that contains only a limited portion of air, make com- 
 binations which would seem almost the result of scien- 
 tific knowledge or reason, though depending upon a 
 more unerring principle, their instinct for preserving 
 their offspring. Those fishes that spawn in spring or
 
 144 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 the beginning of summer and which inhabit deep and 
 still waters, as the carp, bream, pike, tench, &c., deposit 
 their eggs upon aquatic vegetables, which by the in- 
 fluence of the solar light constantly preserve the water 
 in a state of aeration. The trout, salmon, hucho, and 
 others of the Salrno genus, which spawn in the beginning 
 or end of winter, and which inhabit rivers fed by cold 
 and rapid streams which descend from the mountains, 
 deposit their eggs in shallows on heaps of gravel, as 
 near as possible to the source of the stream where the 
 water is fully combined with air ; and to accomplish 
 this purpose they travel for hundreds of miles against 
 the current, and leap over cataracts and dams : thus the 
 Salino salar ascends by the Rhone and the Aar to the 
 glaciers of Switzerland, the hucho by the Danube, the 
 Isar, and the Save, passing through the lakes of the 
 Tyrol and Styria to the highest torrents of the Noric 
 and Julian Alps. 
 
 Phil. My own experience proves in the strongest 
 manner the immediate connection of sensibility with 
 respiration; all that I can remember in my accident 
 was a certain violent and painful sensation of oppres- 
 sion in the chest, which must have been immediately 
 succeeded by loss of sense. 
 
 Eub. I have no doubt that all your suffering was 
 over at the moment you describe ; as far as sensibility 
 is concerned, you were inanimate when your friend 
 raised you from the bottom. This distinct connection 
 of sensibility with the absorption of air by the blood is, 
 I think, in favour of the idea advanced by our friend, 
 that some subtle and ethereal matter is supplied to the 
 system in the elastic air which may be the cause of 
 vitality.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAYEL. 145 
 
 The Unknown. Softly, if you please ; I must not 
 allow you to mistake my view. I think it probable 
 that some subtle matter is derived from the atmosphere 
 connected with the functions of life ; but nothing can 
 be more remote from my opinion than to suppose it the 
 cause of vitality. 
 
 Phil. This might have been fully inferred from the 
 whole tenor of your conversation, and particularly from 
 that expression, " that which commands sensation will 
 not be their subject." I think I shall not mistake 
 your views when I say that you do not consider vitality 
 dependent upon any material cause or principle. 
 
 The Unknown. You do not. We are entirely 
 ignorant on this subject, and I confess in the utmost 
 humility my ignorance. I know there have been dis- 
 tinguished physiologists who have imagined that by 
 organisation powers not naturally possessed by matter 
 were developed, and that sensibility was a property be- 
 longing to some unknown combination of unknown 
 ethereal elements. But such notions appear to me un- 
 philosophical, and the mere substitution of unknown 
 words for unknown things. I can never believe that 
 any division, or refinement, or subtilisation, or juxta- 
 position, or arrangement of the particles of matter, can 
 give to them sensibility ; or that intelligence can result 
 from combinations of insensate and brute atoms. I can 
 as easily imagine that the planets are moving* by their 
 will or design round the sun, or that a cannon ball is 
 reasoning in making its parabolic curve. The mate- 
 rialists have quoted a passage of Locke in favour of 
 their doctrine, who seemed to doubt " whether it might 
 not have pleased God to bestow a power of thinking on 
 matter." But with the highest veneration for this
 
 146 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 great reasoner, the founder of modern philosophical 
 logic, I think there is little of his usual strength of 
 mind in this doubt. It appears to me that he might as 
 well have asked whether it might not have pleased 
 God to make a house its own tenant. 
 
 Eub. I am not a professed materialist ; but I think 
 you treat rather too lightly the modest doubts of Locke 
 on this subject. And without considering me as a 
 partisan, you will, I hope, allow me to state some of the 
 reasons which I have heard good physiologists advance 
 in favour of that opinion to which you are so hostile- 
 In the first accretion of the parts of animated beings 
 they appear almost like the crystallised matter, with 
 the simplest kind of life, scarcely sensitive. The 
 gradual operations by which they acquire new organs 
 and new powers, corresponding to these organs, till 
 they arrive at full maturity, forcibly strikes the mind 
 with the idea that the powers of life reside in the 
 arrangement by which the organs are produced. Then, 
 as there is a gradual increase of power corresponding 
 to the increase of perfection of the organisation, so 
 there is a gradual diminution of it connected with the 
 decay of the body. As the imbecility of infancy 
 corresponds to the weakness of organisation, so the 
 energy of youth and the power of manhood are marked 
 by its strength ; and the feebleness and dotage of old 
 age are in the direct ratio of the decline of the perfec- 
 tion of the organisation, and the mental powers in 
 extreme old age seem destroyed at the same time witli 
 the corporeal ones, till the ultimate dissolution of the 
 frame, when the elements are again restored to that 
 dead nature from which they were originally derived. 
 Then, there was a period when the greatest philosopher,
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 147 
 
 statesman, or hero, that ever existed was a mere living 
 atom, an organised form with the sole power of per- 
 ception ; and the combinations that a Newton formed 
 before birth or immediately after cannot be imagined 
 to have possessed the slightest intellectual character. 
 If a peculiar principle be supposed necessary to intelli- 
 gence, it must exist throughout animated nature. The 
 elephant approaches nearer to man in intellectual power 
 than the oyster does to the elephant ; and a link of 
 sensitive nature may be traced from the polypus to the 
 philosopher. Now, in the polypus the sentient principle 
 is divisible, and from one polypus or one earthworm 
 may be formed two or three, all of which become per- 
 fect animals, and have perception and volition ; there- 
 fore, at least, the sentient principle has this property 
 in common with matter, that it is divisible. Then to 
 these difficulties add the dependence of all the higher 
 faculties of the mind upon the state of the brain; 
 remember that not only all the intellectual powers, but 
 even sensibility is destroyed by the pressure of a little 
 blood upon the cerebellum, and the difficulties increase. 
 Call to mind likewise the suspension of animation in 
 cases similar to that of our friend, when there are no 
 signs of life and when animation returns only with the 
 return of organic action. Surely in all these instances 
 everything which you consider as belonging to spirit 
 appears in intimate dependence upon the arrangements 
 and properties of matter. 
 
 The Unknown. The arguments you have used are 
 those which are generally employed by physiologists. 
 They have weight in appearance, but not in reality. 
 They prove that a certain perfection of the machinery 
 of the body is essential to the exercise of the powers of
 
 148 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 the mind, but they do not prove that the machine is 
 the inind. Without the eye there can be no sensations 
 of vision, and without the brain there could be no 
 recollected visible ideas ; but neither the optic nerve 
 nor the brain can be considered as the percipient prin- 
 ciple they are but the instruments of a power which 
 has nothing in common with them. What may be 
 said of the nervous system may be applied to a dif- 
 ferent part of the frame : stop the motion of the heart. 
 and sensibility and life cease, yet the living principle 
 is not in the heart, nor in the arterial blood which it 
 sends to every part of the system. A savage who saw 
 the operation of a number of power-looms weaving 
 stockings cease at once on the stopping of the motion 
 of a wheel, might well imagine that the motive force 
 was in the wheel ; he could not divine that it more 
 immediately depended upon the steam, and ultimately 
 upon a fire below a concealed boiler. The philosopher 
 sees the fire which is the cause of the motion of this 
 complicated machinery, so unintelligible to the savage ; 
 but both are equally ignorant of the divine fire which 
 is the cause of the mechanism of organised structures. 
 Profoundly ignorant on this subject, all that we can 
 do is to give a history of our own minds. The ex- 
 1 ernal world or matter is to us in fact nothing but a 
 heap or cluster of sensations ; and. in looking back to 
 the memory of our own being, we find one principle, 
 which may be called the monad, or self, constantly 
 present, intimately associated with a particular class of 
 sensations, which we call our own body or organs. 
 These organs are connected with other sensations, and 
 move, as it were, with them in circles of existence, 
 quitting for a time some trains of sensation to return
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 149 
 
 to others ; but the monad is always present. "We can 
 fix no beginning to its operations; we can place no 
 limit to them. We sometimes, in sleep, lose the be- 
 ginning and end of a dream, and recollect the middle 
 of it, and one dream has no connection with another ; 
 and yet we are conscious of an infinite variety of 
 dreams, and there is a strong analogy for believing 
 in an infinity of past existences, which must have had 
 connection ; and human life may be regarded as a type 
 of infinite and immortal life, and its succession of 
 sleep and dreams as a type of the changes of death and 
 birth to which from its nature it is liable. That the 
 ideas belonging to the mind were originally gained 
 from those classes of sensations called organs it is 
 impossible to deny, as it is impossible to deny that 
 mathematical truths depend upon the signs which 
 express them ; but these signs are not themselves the 
 truths, nor are the organs the mind. The whole 
 history of intellect is a history of change according 
 to a certain law; and we retain the memory only of 
 those changes which may be useful to us the child 
 forgets what happened to it in the womb ; the recol- 
 lections of the infant likewise before two years are 
 soon lost, yet many of the habits acquired in that age 
 are retained through life. The sentient principle gains 
 thoughts by material instruments, and its sensations 
 change as those instruments change ; and, in old age, 
 the mind, as it were, falls asleep to awake to a new 
 existence. With its present organisation, the intellect 
 of man is naturally limited and imperfect, but this 
 depends upon its material machinery ; and in a higher 
 organised form, it may be imagined to possess in- 
 finitely higher powers. Were man to be immortal
 
 150 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 with his present corporeal frame, this immortality 
 would only belong to the machinery ; and with respect 
 to acquisitions of mind, he would virtually die every 
 two or three hundred years that is to say, a certain 
 quantity of ideas only could be remembered, and the 
 supposed immortal being would be, with respect to 
 what had happened a thousand years ago, as the adult 
 now is with respect to what happened in the first year 
 of his life. To attempt to reason upon the manner in 
 which the organs are connected with sensation would 
 be useless ; the nerves and brain have some immediate 
 relation to these vital functions, but how they act it is 
 impossible to say. From the rapidity and infinite 
 variety of the phenomena of perception, it seems ex- 
 tremely probable that there must be in the brain and 
 nerves matter of a nature far more subtle and refined 
 than anything discovered in them by observation and 
 experiment, and that the immediate connection between 
 the sentient principle and the body may be established 
 by kinds of ethereal matter, which can never be evident 
 to the senses, and which may bear the same relations to 
 heat, light, and electricity that these refined forms or 
 modes of existence of matter bear to the gases. 
 Motion is most easily produced by the lighter species 
 of matter ; and yet imponderable agents, such as elec- 
 tricity, possess force sufficient to overturn the weightiest 
 structures. Nothing can be farther from my meaning 
 than to attempt any definition on this subject, nor 
 would I ever embrace or give authority to that idea of 
 Xewton. who supposes that the immediate cause of 
 sensation may be in undulations of an ethereal medium. 
 It does not, however, appear improbable to me that 
 some of the more refined machinery of thought may
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 151 
 
 adhere, even in another state, to the sentient principle ; 
 for. though the organs of gross sensation the nerves 
 and brain are destroyed by death, yet something of 
 the more ethereal nature, which I have supposed, may 
 be less destructible. And I sometimes imagine that 
 many of those powers, which have been called in- 
 stinctive, belong to the more refined clothing of the 
 spirit; conscience, indeed, seems to have some unde- 
 fined source, and may bear relation to a former state 
 of being. 
 
 Hub. All your notions are merely ingenious specu- 
 lations. .Revelation gives no authority to your ideas 
 of spiritual nature ; the Christian immortality is 
 founded upon the resurrection of the body. 
 
 The Unknown. This I will not allow. Even in the 
 Mosaic history of the creation of man his frame is made 
 in the image of God that is, capable of intelligence ; 
 and the Creator breathes into it the breath of life, His 
 own essence. Then our Saviour has said, " of the God 
 of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." " He is not the 
 God of the dead, but of the living." St. Paul has de- 
 scribed the clothing of the spirit in a new and glorious 
 body, taking the analogy from the living germ in the 
 seed of the plant, which is not quickened till after 
 apparent death; and the catastrophe of our planet, 
 which, it is revealed, is to be destroyed and purified by 
 fire before it is fitted for the habitation of the blest, is 
 in perfect harmony with the view I have ventured to 
 suggest. 
 
 Eub. I cannot make your notions coincide with 
 what I have been accustomed to consider the meaning 
 of Holy Writ. You allow everything belonging to 
 the material life to be dependent upon the organisation
 
 152 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 of the body, and yet you imagine the spirit after death 
 clothed with a new body ; and, in the system of re- 
 wards and punishments, this body is rendered happy 
 or miserable for actions committed by another and 
 extinct frame. A particular organisation may impel 
 to improper and immoral gratification ; it does not ap- 
 pear to me, according to the principles of eternal jus- 
 tice, that the body of the resurrection should be punished 
 for crimes dependent upon a conformation now dis- 
 solved and destroyed. 
 
 The Unknown. Nothing is more absurd, 1 may say 
 more impious, than for man, with a ken surrounded by 
 the dense mists of sense, to reason respecting the de- 
 crees of eternal justice. You adopt here the same 
 limited view that you embraced in reasoning against 
 the indestructibility of the sentient principle in man 
 from the apparent division of the living principle in 
 the polypus, not recollecting that to prove a quality 
 can be increased or exalted does not prove that it can 
 lie annihilated. If there be, whicli I think cannot be 
 doubted, a consciousness of good and evil constantly 
 belonging to the sentient principle in man. then re- 
 wards and punishments naturally belong to acts of this 
 consciousness, to obedience, or disobedience ; and the 
 indestructibility of the sentient being is necessary to 
 the decrees of eternal justice. On your view, even in 
 this life, just punishments for crimes would be almost 
 impossible ; for the materials of which human beings 
 are composed change rapidly, and in a few years pro- 
 bably not an atom of the primitive structure remains ; 
 yet even the materialist is obliged in old age to do 
 penance for the sins of his youth, and does not complain 
 of the injustice of his decrepit body, entirely changed
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 153 
 
 and made stiff by time, suffering for the intemperance 
 of his youthful flexible frame. On my idea, conscience 
 is the frame of the mind, fitted for its probation in 
 mortality. And this is in exact accordance with the 
 foundations of our religion, the Divine origin of which 
 is marked no less by its history than its harmony with 
 the principles of our nature. Obedience to its precepts 
 not only prepares for a better state of existence in 
 another world, but is likewise calculated to make us 
 happy here. We are constantly taught to renounce 
 sensual pleasure and selfish gratifications, to forget our 
 body and sensible organs, to associate our pleasures 
 with mind, to fix our affections upon the great ideal 
 generalisation of intelligence in the one Supreme 
 Being. And that we are capable of forming to our- 
 selves an imperfect idea even of the infinite mind is, I 
 think, a strong presumption of our own immortality, 
 and of the distinct relation which our finite knowledge 
 bears to eternal wisdom. 
 
 Phil. I am pleased with your views ; they coincide 
 with those I had formed at the time my imagination 
 was employed upon the vision of the Colosaeum, which 
 I repeated to you, and are not in opposition with the 
 opinions that the cool judgment and sound and humble 
 faith of Ambrosio have led me since to embrace. The 
 doctrine of the materialists was always, even in my 
 youth, a cold, heavy, dull, and insupportable doctrine 
 to me, and necessarily tending to Atheism. When I 
 had heard, with disgust, in the dissecting-rooms the 
 plan of the physiologist of the gradual accretion of 
 matter, and its becoming endowed with irritability, 
 ripening into sensibility and acquiring such organs as 
 were necessary, by its own inherent forces, and at last
 
 154 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 rising into intellectual existence, a walk into the green 
 fields or woods by the banks of rivers brought back my 
 feelings from nature to God ; I saw in all the powers 
 of matter the instruments of the Deity; the sunbeams, 
 the breath of the zephyr, awakened animation in forms 
 prepared by Divine intelligence to receive it ; the insen- 
 sate seed, the slumbering egg, which were to be vivified, 
 appeared like the new-born animal, works of a Divine 
 mind ; I saw love as the creative principle in the ma- 
 terial world, and this love only as a Divine attribute. 
 Then, my own mind. I felt connected with new sensa- 
 tions and indefinite hopes, a thirst for immortality; 
 the great names of other ages and of distant nations 
 appeared to me to be still living around me ; and, even 
 in the funeral monuments of the heroic and the great, 
 I saw, as it were, the decree of the indestructibility of 
 mind. These feelings, though generally considered as 
 poetical, yet, I think, offer a sound philosophical argu- 
 ment in favour of the immortality of the soul. In all 
 the habits and instincts of young animals their feelings 
 or movements may be traced in intimate relation to 
 their improved perfect state ; their sports have always 
 affinities to their modes of t hunting or catching their 
 food, and young birds, even in the nest, show marks of 
 fondness which, when their frames are developed, be- 
 come signs of actions necessary to the reproduction and 
 preservation of the species. The desire of glory, of 
 honour, of immortal fame, and of constant knowledge, 
 so usual in young persons of well-constituted minds, 
 cannot, I think, be other than symptoms of the infinite 
 and progressive nature of intellect hopes which, as 
 thev cannot be gratified here, belong to a frame of 
 mind suited to a nobler state of existence.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 155 
 
 The Unknown. Religion, whether natural or re- 
 vealed, has always the same beneficial influence on the 
 mind. In youth, in health, and prosperity, it awakens 
 feelings of gratitude and sublime love, and purifies at 
 the same time that it exalts ; but it is in misfortune, in 
 sickness, in age, that its effects are most truly and 
 beneficially felt ; when submission in faith and humble 
 trust in the Divine will, from duties become pleasures, 
 undecaying sources of consolation; then it creates 
 powers which were believed to be extinct, and gives a 
 freshness to the mind whicli was supposed to have 
 passed away for ever, but which is now renovated as 
 an immortal hope ; then it is the Pharos, guiding the 
 wave-tost mariner to his home, as the calm and beautiful 
 still basins or fiords, surrounded by tranquil groves 
 and pastoral meadows, to the Norwegian pilot escaping 
 from a heavy storm in the north sea, or as the green 
 and dewy spot gushing with fountains to the exhausted 
 and thirsty traveller in the midst of the desert. Its 
 influence outlives all earthly enjoyments, and becomes 
 stronger as the organs decay and the frame dissolves ; 
 it appears as that evening star of light in the horizon 
 of life, which, w"e are sure, is to become in another 
 season a morning star, and it throws its radiance 
 through the gloom and shadow of death. 
 
 DIALOGUE THE FIFTH. 
 
 THE CHEMICAL PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 I HAD been made religious by the conversations of 
 Ambrosio in Italy ; my faith was strengthened and 
 exalted by the opinions of the Unknown, for whom I
 
 156 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 had not merely that veneration awakened by exalted 
 talents, bnt a strong affection founded upon the essen- 
 tial benefit of the preservation of my life owing to him. 
 I A*entured, the evening after our visit to the cave of 
 Adelsberg, to ask him some questions relating to his 
 history and adventures. He said, " To attempt to give 
 you any idea of the formation of my character would 
 lead me into the history of my youth, which almost 
 approaches to a tale of romance. The source of the 
 little information and intelligence I possess I must 
 refer to a restless activity of spirit, a love of glory 
 which ever belonged to my infancy, and a sensibility 
 easily excited and not easily conquered. My parentage 
 was humble, yet I can believe a traditional history of 
 my paternal grandmother, that the origin of our family 
 was from an old Norman stock ; I found this belief 
 upon certain feelings which I can only refer to an 
 hereditary source, a pride of decorum, a tact and re- 
 finement even in boyhood, and which are contradictory 
 to the idea of an origin from a race of peasants. 
 Accident opened to me in early youth a philosophical 
 career, which I pursued with success. In manhood 
 fortune smiled upon me and made me independent ; I 
 then really became a philosopher, and pursued my 
 travels with the object of instructing myself and of 
 benefiting mankind. I have seen most parts of Europe, 
 and conversed, I believe, with all the illustrious men 
 of science belonging to them. My life has not been 
 unlike that of the ancient Greek sages. I have added 
 some little to the quantity of human knowledge, and I 
 have endeavoured to add something to the quantity of 
 human happiness. In niy early life I was a sceptic ; I 
 have informed you how I became a believer, and I
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 157 
 
 constantly bless the Supreme Intelligence for the 
 favour of some gleams of Divine light which have been 
 vouchsafed to me in this our state of darkness and 
 doubt. 
 
 Phil. I am surprised that with your powers you 
 did not enter into a professional career either of law or 
 politics ; you would have gained the highest honours 
 and distinctions. 
 
 The Unknown. To me there never has been a 
 higher source of honour or distinction than that con- 
 nected with advances in science. I have not possessed 
 enough of the eagle in my character to make a direct 
 flight to the loftiest altitudes in the social world, and I 
 certainly never endeavoured to reach those heights by 
 using the creeping powers of the reptile who, in 
 ascending, generally chooses the dirtiest path, because 
 it is the easiest. 
 
 JEiib. I have often wondered that men of fortune 
 and of rank do not apply themselves more to philo- 
 sophical pursuits ; they oifer a delightful and enviable 
 road to distinction, one founded upon the blessings and 
 benefits conferred on our fellow-creatures ; they do not 
 supply the same sources of temporary popularity as 
 successes in the senate or at the bar, but the glory 
 resulting from them is permanent and independent of 
 vulgar taste or caprice. In looking back to the history 
 of the last five reigns in England, we find Boyles, 
 Cavendishes, and Howards, who rendered these great 
 names more illustrious by their scientific honours ; but 
 we may in vain search the aristocracy now for philo- 
 sophers, and there are very 'few persons who pursue 
 science with true dignity ; it is followed more as con- 
 nected with objects of profit than those of fame, and
 
 158 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 there are fifty persons who take out patents for 
 supposed inventions for one who makes a real dis- 
 covery. 
 
 Phil. The information we have already received 
 from you proves to me that chemistry has been your 
 favourite pursuit. I am surprised at this. The higher 
 mathematics and pure physics appear to me to offer 
 much more noble objects of contemplation and fields 
 of discovery, and, practically considered, the results of 
 the chemist are much more humble, belonging prin- 
 cipally to the apothecary's shop and the kitchen. 
 
 Eub. I feel disposed to join you in attacking this 
 favourite study of our friend, but merely to provoke 
 him to defend it. I wish our attack would induce him 
 to vindicate his science, and that we might enjoy a 
 little of the sport of literary gladiators, at least, in 
 order to call forth his skill and awaken his eloquence. 
 
 The Unknown. I have no objection. Let there be 
 a fair discussion ; remember we fight only with foils, 
 and the point of mine shall be covered with velvet. 
 In your attack upon chemistry, Philalethes, you 
 limited the use of it to the apothecary's shop and the 
 kitchen. The first is an equivocal use ; by introducing 
 it into the kitchen you make it an art fundamental to 
 all others. But if what you had stated had really 
 meant to be serious, it would not have deserved a 
 reply; as it is in mere playfulness, it shall not be 
 thrown away. I want eloquence, however, to adorn my 
 subject, yet it is sufficiently exciting even to awaken 
 feeling. Persons in general look at the magnificent 
 fabric of civilized society as the result of the accumu- 
 lated labour, ingenuity, and enterprise of man through 
 a long course of ages, without attempting to define
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 159 
 
 what has been owing to the different branches of 
 human industry and science ; and usually attribute to 
 politicians, statesmen, and warriors a much greater 
 share than really belongs to them in the work : what 
 they have done is in reality little. The beginning of 
 civilization is the discovery of some useful arts by 
 which men acquire property, comforts, or luxuries 
 The necessity or desire of preserving them leads to 
 laws and social institutions. The discovery of peculiai 
 arts gives superiority to particular nations; and tho 
 love of power induces them to employ this superiority 
 to subjugate other nations, who learn their arts, and 
 ultimately adopt their manners ; so that in reality the 
 origin, as well as the progress and improvement, of 
 civil society is founded in mechanical and chemical 
 inventions. No people have ever arrived at any degree 
 of perfection in their institutions who have not pos- 
 sessed in a high degree the useful and refined arts. 
 The comparison of savage and civilized man, in fact, 
 demonstrates the triumph of chemical and mechanical 
 philosophy as the causes not only of the physical, but 
 ultimately even of moral improvement. Look at the 
 condition of man in the lowest state in which we 
 are acquainted with him. Take the native of New 
 Holland, advanced only a few steps above the animal 
 creation, and that principally by the use of fire ; naked, 
 defending himself against wild beasts or killing them 
 for food only by weapons made of wood hardened in 
 the fire, or pointed with stones or fish bones ; living 
 only in holes dug out of the earth, or in huts rudely 
 constructed of a few branches of trees covered with 
 grass ; having no approach to the enjoyment of 
 luxuries or even comforts ; unable to provide for his
 
 160 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 most pressing wants ; having a language scarcely 
 articulate, relating only to the great objects of nature, 
 or to his most pressing necessities or desires, and 
 living solitary or in single families, unacquainted with 
 religion, government, or laws, submitted to the mercy 
 of nature or the elements. How different is man in 
 his highest state of cultivation ; every part of his body 
 covered with the products of different chemical and 
 mechanical arts made not only useful in protecting 
 him from the inclemency of the seasons but combined 
 in forms of beauty and variety ; creating out of the 
 dust of the earth from the clay under his feet instru- 
 ments of use and ornament ; extracting metals from 
 the rude ore and giving to them a hundred different 
 shapes for a thousand different purposes ; selecting 
 and improving the vegetable productions with which 
 he covers the earth; not only subduing but taming 
 and domesticating the wildest, the fleetest, and the 
 strongest inhabitants of the wood, the mountain, and 
 the air ; making the winds carry him on every part of 
 the immense ocean ; and compelling the elements of 
 air, water, and even fire as it were to labour for him ; 
 concentrating in small space materials which act as 
 the thunderbolt, and directing their energies so as to 
 destroy at immense distances ; blasting the rock, re- 
 moving the mountain, carrying water from the valley 
 to the hill ; perpetuating thought in imperishable 
 words, rendering immortal the exertion of genius, and 
 presenting them as common property to all awakening 
 minds, becoming as it were the true image of divine 
 intelligence receiving and bestowing the breath of life 
 in the influence of civilization. 
 
 Eub. Really you are in the poetical, not the chemical
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 161 
 
 cliair, or rather on the tripod. We claim from you 
 some accuracy of detail, some minute information, 
 some proofs of what you assert. "What you attribute 
 to the chemical and mechanical arts, we might with 
 the same propriety attribute to the fine arts, to letters, 
 to political improvement, and to those inventions of 
 which Minerva and Apollo and not Yulcan are the 
 patrons. 
 
 The Unknown. I will be more minute. You will 
 allow that the rendering skins insoluble in water by 
 combining with them the astringent principle of cer- 
 tain vegetables is a chemical invention, and that with- 
 out leather, our shoes, our carriages, our equipages 
 would be very ill made ; you will permit me to say, 
 that the bleaching and dying of wool and silk, cotton, 
 and flax, are chemical procenes, and that the conver- 
 sion of them into different clothes is a mechanical 
 invention ; that the working of iron, copper, tin, and 
 lead, and the other metals, and the combining them in 
 different alloys by which almost all the instruments 
 necessary for the turner, the joiner, the stone-mason, 
 the ship-builder, and the smith are made, are chemical 
 inventions ; even the press, to the influence of 
 which I am disposed to attribute as much as you 
 can do, could not have existed in any state of per- 
 fection without a metallic alloy ; the combining of 
 alkali and sand, and certain clays and flints together 
 to form glass and porcelain is a chemical process ; the 
 colours which the artist employs to frame resemblances 
 of natural objects, or to create combinations more 
 beautiful than ever existed in Nature, are derived from 
 chemistry; in short, in every branch of the common 
 and fine arts, in every department of human industry, 
 F 203
 
 162 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 the influence of this science is felt, and we may fiud in 
 the fable of Prometheus taking the flame from heaven 
 to animate his man of clay an emblem of the effects 
 of fire in its application to chemical purposes in 
 creating the activity and almost the life of civil 
 society. 
 
 Phil. It appears to me that you attribute to science 
 what in many cases has been the result of accident. 
 The processes of most of the useful arts, which you 
 call chemical, have been invented and improved with- 
 out any refined views, without any general system of 
 knowledge. Lucretius attributes to accident the dis- 
 covery of the fusion of the metals ; a person in touch- 
 ing a shell-fish observes that it emits a purple liquid 
 as a dye, hence the Tyrian purple ; clay is observed to 
 harden in the fire, and hence the invention of bricks, 
 which could hardly fail ultimately to lead to the dis- 
 covery of porcelain ; even glass, the most perfect and 
 beautiful of those manufactures you call chemical, is 
 said to have been discovered by accident ; Theophrastus 
 states that some merchants who were cooking on lumps 
 of soda or natron, near the mouth of the river Belus, 
 observed that a hard and vitreous substance was formed 
 where the fused natron ran into the sand. 
 
 TJie Unknown. I will readily allow that accident 
 has had much to do with the origin of the arts as with 
 the progress of the sciences. But it has been by 
 scientific processes and experiments that these acci- 
 dental results have been rendered really applicable to 
 the purposes of common life. Besides, it requires a 
 certain degree of knowledge and scientific combination 
 to understand and seize upon the facts which have 
 originated in accident. It is certain that in all fires
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 163 
 
 alkaline substances and sand are fused together, and 
 clay hardened ; yet for ages after this discovery of fire, 
 glass and porcelain were unknown till some men of 
 genius profited by scientific combination often observed 
 but never applied. It suits the indolence of those 
 minds which never attempt anything, and which 
 probably if they did attempt anything would not 
 succeed, to refer to accident that which belongs to 
 genius. It is sometimes said by such persons, that the 
 discovery of the law of gravitation was owing to 
 accident ; and a ridiculous story is told of the falling 
 of an apple as the cause of this discovery. As well 
 might the invention of fluxions or the architectural 
 wonders of the dome of St. Peter's, or the miracles 
 of art the St. John of Raphael or the Apollo Belvidere, 
 be supposed to be owing to accidental combinations. 
 In the progress of an art, from its rudest to its more 
 perfect state, the whole process depends upon experi- 
 ments. Science is in fact nothing more than the 
 refinement of common sense making use of facts 
 already known to acquire new facts. Clays which are 
 yellow are kuowu to burn red; calcareous earth renders 
 flint fusible the persons who have improved earthen- 
 ware made their selections accordingly. Iron was 
 discovered at least one thousand years before it was 
 rendered malleable ; and from what Herodotus says of 
 this discovery, there can be little doubt that it was 
 developed by a scientific worker in metals. Vitruvius 
 tells us that the ceruleum, a colour made of copper, 
 which exists in perfection in all the old paintings of 
 the Greeks and Romans and on the mummies of the 
 Egyptians, was discovered by an Egyptian king ; there 
 is therefore every reason to believe that it was not the
 
 164 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 result of accidental combination, but of experiments 
 made for producing or improving colours. Amongst 
 the ancient philosophers, many discoveries are attri- 
 buted to Democritus and Anaxagoras ; and, connected 
 with chemical arts, the narrative of the inventions of 
 Archimedes alone, by Plutarch, would seem to show 
 how great is the effect of science in creating power. 
 In modern times, the refining of sugar, the preparation 
 of nitre, the manufacturing of acids, salts, &c., are all 
 results of pure chemistry. Take gunpowder as a 
 specimen ; no person but a man infinitely diversify- 
 ing his processes and guided by analogy could have 
 made such a discovery. Look into the books of the 
 alchemists, and some idea may be formed of the effects 
 of experiments. It is true, these persons were guided 
 by false views, yet they made most useful researches ; 
 and Lord Bacon has justly compared them to the 
 husbandman who, searching for an imaginary treasure, 
 fertilised the soil. They might likewise be compared 
 to persons who, looking for gold, discover the frag- 
 ments of beautiful statues, which separately are of no 
 value, and which appear of little value to the persons 
 who found them ; but which, when selected and put 
 together by artists and their defective parts supplied, 
 are found to be wonderfully perfect and worthy of con- 
 servation. Look to the progress of the arts since they 
 have been enlightened by a system of science, and 
 observe with what rapidity they have advanced. 
 Again, the steam-engine in its rudest form was the 
 result of a chemical experiment ; in its refined state it 
 required the combinations of all the most recondite 
 principles of chemistry and mechanics, and that 
 excellent philosopher who has given this wonderful
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 165 
 
 instrument of power to civil society was led to the 
 great improvements he made by the discoveries of a 
 kindred genius on the heat absorbed when water 
 becomes steam, and of the heat evolved when steam 
 becomes water. Even the most superficial observer 
 must, allow in this case a triumph of science, for what 
 a wonderful impulse has this invention given to the 
 progress of the arts and manufactories in our country, 
 how much has it diminished labour, how much has it 
 increased the real strength of the country ! Acting 
 as it were with a thousand hands, it has multiplied 
 our active population ; and receiving its elements 
 of activity from the bowels of the earth, it performs 
 operations which formerly were painful, oppressive, 
 and unhealthy to the labourers, with regularity and 
 constancy, and gives security and precision to the 
 efforts of the manufacturer. And the inventions con- 
 nected with the steam-engine, at the same time that 
 they have greatly diminished labour of body, have 
 tended to increase power of mind and intellectual 
 resources. Adam Smith well observes that manu- 
 facturers are always more ingenious than husband- 
 men ; and manufacturers who use machinery will 
 probably always be found more ingenious than handi- 
 craft manufacturers. You spoke of porcelain as a 
 result of accident ; the improvements invented in this 
 country, as well as those made in Germany and France, 
 have been entirely the result of chemical experiments ; 
 the Dresden and the Sevres manufactories have been 
 the work of men of science, and it was by multiplying 
 his chemical researches that Wedgewood was enabled 
 to produce at so cheap a rate those beautiful imitations 
 which while they surpass the ancient vases in solidity
 
 166 CONSOLATIONS IX TRAVEL. 
 
 and perfection of material, equal them in elegance, 
 variety, and tasteful arrangement of their forms. In 
 another department, the use of the electrical conductor 
 was a pure scientific combination, and the sublimity of 
 the discovery of the American philosopher was only 
 equalled by the happy application he immediately made 
 of it. In our own times it would be easy to point our 
 numerous instances in which great improvements and 
 beneficial results connected with the comforts, the 
 happiness, and even life of our fellow creatures have 
 been the results of scientific combinations ; but I can- 
 not do this without constituting myself a judge of the 
 works of philosophers who are still alive, whose re- 
 searches are known, whose labours are respected, and 
 who will receive from posterity praises that their con- 
 temporaries hardly dare to bestow upon them. 
 
 Eub. We will allow that you have shown in many 
 eases the utility of scientific investigation as connected 
 witli the progress of the useful arts. But, in general, 
 both the principles of chemistry are followed, and 
 series of experiments performed without any view to 
 utility ; and a great noise is made if a new metal or a 
 new substance is discovered, or if some abstracted law 
 is made known relating to the phenomena of nature ; 
 yet, amongst the variety of new substances, few have 
 been applied to any trifling use even, and the greater 
 number have had no application at all. And with 
 respect to the general views of the science, it would be 
 difficult to show that any real good had resulted from 
 the discovery or extension of them. It does not add 
 much to the dignity of a pursuit that those persons 
 who have followed it for profit have really been 
 most useful, and that the mere artisan or chemical
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. L67 
 
 manufacturer has done more for society than the chemical 
 philosopher. Besides, it has always appeared to me 
 that it is in the nature of this science to encourage 
 mediocrity and to attach importance to insignificant 
 things ; very slight chemical labours seem to give 
 persons a claim to the title of philosopher to have 
 dissolved a few grains of chalk in an acid, to have 
 shown that a very useless stone contains certain known 
 ingredients, or that the colouring matter of a flower is 
 soluble in acid and not in alkali, is thought by some a 
 foundation for chemical celebrity. I once began to 
 attend a course of chemical lectures and to read the 
 journals containing the ephemeral productions of this 
 science ; I was dissatisfied with the nature of the evi- 
 dence which the professor adopted in his demonstra- 
 tions, and disgusted with the series of observations and 
 experiments which were brought forward one month to 
 be overturned the next. In November there was a 
 Zingeberic acid, which in January was shown to have 
 no existence; one year there was a vegetable acid, 
 which the next was shown to be the same as an acid 
 known thirty years ago ; to-day a man was celebrated 
 for having discovered a new metal or a new alkali, and 
 they nourished like the scenes in a new pantomime only 
 to disappear. Then, the great object of the hundred 
 triflers in the science appeared to be to destroy the 
 reputation of the three or four great men whose 
 labours were really useful, and had in them something 
 of dignity. And, there not being enough of trifling 
 results or false experiments to fill up the pages of the 
 monthly journals, the deficiency was supplied by some 
 crude theories or speculations of unknown persons, or by 
 some ill-judged censure or partial praise of the editor.
 
 168 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 Tlie Unknown. I deny in toto the accuracy of what 
 you are advancing. I have already shown that real 
 philosophers, not labouring- for profit, have done much 
 by their own inventions for the useful arts ; and, 
 amongst the new substances discovered, many have 
 had immediate and very important applications. The 
 chlorine, or oxymuriatic gas of Scheele, was scarcely 
 known before it was applied by Berthollet to bleach- 
 ing ; scarcely was muriatic acid gas discovered by 
 Priestley, when G-uyton de Morveau used it for de- 
 stroying contagion. Consider the varied and diversified 
 applications of platinum, which has owed its existence 
 as a useful metal entirely to the labours of an illustrious 
 chemical philosopher ; look at the beautiful yellow 
 afforded by one of the new metals, chrome ; consider 
 the medical effects of iodine in some of the most 
 painful and disgusting maladies belonging to human 
 nature, and remember how short a time investigations 
 have been made for applying the new substances. 
 Besides, the mechanical or chemical manufacturer has 
 rarely discovered anything ; he has merely applied 
 what the philosopher has made known, he has merely 
 worked upon the materials furnished to him. We have 
 no history of the manner in which iron was rendered 
 malleable ; but we know that platinum could only 
 have been worked by a person of the most refined 
 chemical resources, who made multiplied experiments 
 upon it after the most ingenious and profound views. 
 But, waiving all common utility, all vulgar applica- 
 tions, there is something in knowing and understand- 
 ing the operation of Nature, some pleasure in con- 
 templating the order and harmony of the arrangements 
 belonging to the terrestrial system of things. There
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 169 
 
 is no absolute utility in poetry, but it gives pleasure, 
 refines and exalts the mind. Philosophic pursuits have 
 likewise a noble and independent use of this kind, and 
 there is a double reason offered for pursuing them, for 
 whilst in their sublime speculations they reach to the 
 heavens, in their application they belong to the earth ; 
 whilst they exalt the intellect, they provide food for 
 our common wants, and likewise minister to the noblest 
 appetites and most exalted views belonging to our 
 nature. The results of this science are not like the 
 temples of the ancients, in which statues of the gods 
 were placed, where incense was offered and sacrifices 
 were performed, and which were presented to the adora- 
 tion of the multitude founded upon superstitious feel- 
 ings ; but they are rather like the palaces of the 
 moderns, to be admired and used, and where the 
 statues, which in the ancients raised feelings of 
 adoration and awe, now produce only feelings of 
 pleasure, and gratify a refined taste. It is surely a 
 pure delight to know how and by what processes this 
 earth is clothed with verdure and life, how the clouds, 
 mists, and rain are formed, what causes all the changes 
 of this terrestrial system of things, and by what divine 
 laws order is preserved amidst apparent confusion. It 
 is a sublime occupation to investigate the cause of the 
 tempest and the volcano, and to point out their use in 
 the economy of things, to bring the lightning from the 
 clouds and make it subservient to our experiments, to 
 produce, as it were, a microcosm in the laboratory of 
 art, and to measure and weigh those invisible atoms 
 which, by their motions and changes according to laws 
 impressed upon them by the Divine Intelligence, con- 
 stitute the universe of things. The true chemical
 
 170 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 philosopher sees good in all the diversified forms of 
 the external world. Whilst he investigates the opera- 
 tions of infinite power guided by infinite wisdom, all 
 low prejudices, all mean superstitions, disappear from 
 his mind. He sees man an atom amidst atoms fixed 
 upon a point in space, and yet modifying the laws that 
 are around him by understanding them, and gaining, 
 as it were, a kind of dominion over time and an empire 
 in material space, and exerting on a scale infinitely 
 small a power seeming a sort of shadow or reflection 
 of a creative energy, and which entitles him to the dis- 
 tinction of being made in the image of God and ani- 
 mated by a spark of the Divine Mind. Whilst chemical 
 pursuits exalt the understanding, they do not depress 
 the imagination or weaken genuine feeling; whilst 
 they give the mind habits of accuracy by obliging it 
 to attend to facts, they likewise extend its analogies. 
 and though conversant with the minute forms of 
 things, they have for their ultimate end the great 
 and magnificent objects of Nature. They regard the 
 formation of a crystal, the structure of a pebble, the 
 nature of a clay or earth ; and they apply to the causes 
 of the diversity of our mountain chains, the appear- 
 ances of the winds, thunderstorms, meteors, the earth- 
 quake, the volcano, and all those phenomena which 
 oifer the most striking images to the poet and the 
 painter. They keep alive that inextinguishable thirst 
 after knowledge which is one of the greatest charac- 
 teristics of our nature, for every discovery opens a 
 new field for investigation of facts, shows us the im- 
 perfection of our theories. It has justly been said that 
 the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary 
 of darkness by which it is surrounded. This strictly
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL, 171 
 
 applies to chemical inquiries, and lience they are 
 wonderfully suited to the progressive nature of the 
 human intellect, which by its increasing efforts to 
 acquire a higher kind of wisdom, and a state in which 
 truth is fully and brightly revealed, seems, as it were, 
 to demonstrate its birthright to immortality. 
 
 Eub. I am glad that our opposition has led you to 
 so complete a vindication of your favourite science. I 
 want no further proof of its utility. I regret that I 
 have not before made it a particular object of study. 
 
 Phil. As our friend has so fully convinced us of 
 the importance of chemistry, I hope he will descend to 
 some particulars as to its real nature, its objects, its 
 instruments. I would willingly have a definition of 
 chemistry and some idea of the qualifications necessary 
 to become a chemist, and of the apparatus essential for 
 understanding what has been already done iu the 
 science, and for pursuing new inquiries. 
 
 The Unknown. There is nothing more difficult than 
 a good definition, for it is scarcely possible to express 
 in a few words the abstracted view of an infinite 
 variety of facts. Dr. Black has defined chemistry to 
 be that science which treats of the changes produced 
 in bodies by motions of their ultimate particles or 
 atoms, but this definition is hypothetical, for the 
 ultimate particles or atoms are mere creations of the 
 imagination. I will give you a definition, which will 
 have the merit of novelty and which is probably general 
 in its application. Chemistry relates to those opera- 
 tions by which the intimate nature of bodies is changed, 
 or by which they acquire new properties. This defini- 
 tion Avill not only apply to the effects of mixture, but 
 to the phenomena of electricity, and, in short, to all the
 
 172 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 changes which do not merely depend upon the motion 
 or division of masses of matter. However difficult 
 it may have been to have given you a definition of 
 chemistry, it is still more difficult to give you a detail 
 of all the qualities necessary for a chemical philosopher. 
 I will not name as many as Athenseus has named for a 
 cook, who, he says, ought to be a mathematician, a 
 theoretical musician, a natural philosopher, a natural 
 historian, &c., though you had a disposition just now 
 to make chemistry merely subservient to the uses of 
 the kitchen. But I will seriously mention some of the 
 studies fundamental to the higher departments of this 
 science ; a man may be a good practical chemist per- 
 haps without possessing them, but he never can become 
 a great chemical philosopher. The person who wishes 
 to understand the higher departments of chemistry, or 
 to pursue them in their most interesting relations to 
 the economy of Nature, ought to be well-grounded in 
 elementary mathematics ; he will oftener have to refer 
 to arithmetic than algebra, and to algebra than to 
 geometry. But all these sciences lend their aid to 
 chemistry ; arithmetic, in determining the proportions 
 of analytical results and the relative weights of the 
 elements of bodies ; algebra, in ascertaining the laws 
 of the pressure of elastic fluids, the force of vapour as 
 dependent upon temperature, and the effects of masses 
 a iid surfaces on the communication and radiation 
 of heat ; the applications of geometry are principally 
 limited to the determination of the crystalline forms of 
 bodies, which constitute the most important type of 
 their nature, and often offer useful hints for analytical 
 researches respecting their composition. The first 
 principles of natural philosophy or general physics
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 173 
 
 ought not to be entirely unknown to the chemist. As 
 the most active agents are fluids, elastic fluids, heat, 
 light, and electricity, he ought to have a general know- 
 ledge of mechanics, hydrodynamics, pneumatics, optics, 
 and electricity. Latin and Greek among the dead and 
 French among the modern languages are necessary, 
 and, as the most important after French, German and 
 Italian. In natural history and in literature what 
 belongs to a liberal education, such as that of our 
 universities, is all that is required ; indeed, a young 
 man who has performed the ordinary course of college 
 studies which are supposed fitted for common life and 
 for refined society, has all the preliminary knowledge 
 necessary to commence the study of chemistry. The 
 apparatus essential to the modern chemical philosopher 
 is much less bulky and expensive than that used by the 
 ancients. An air pump, an electrical machine, a 
 voltaic battery (all of which may be upon a small 
 scale), a blow- pipe apparatus, a bellows and forge, a 
 mercurial and water-gas apparatus, cups and basins of 
 platinum and glass, and the common reagents of 
 chemistry, are what are required. All the implements 
 absolutely necessary may be carried in a small trunk, 
 and some of the best and most refined researches of 
 modern chemists have been made by means of an 
 apparatus which might with ease be contained in a small 
 travelling carriage, and the expense of which is only a 
 few pounds. The facility with which chemical inquiries 
 are carried on, and the simplicity of the apparatus, 
 offer additional reasons, to those I have already given, 
 for the pursuit of this science. It is not injurious to 
 the health ; the modern chemist is not like the ancient 
 one, who passed the greater part of his time exposed to
 
 174 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 the heat and smoke of a furnace and the unwholesome 
 vapours of acids and alkalies and other menstrua, of 
 which, for a single experiment, he consumed several 
 pounds. His processes may be carried on in the draw- 
 ing-room, and some of them are no less beautiful in 
 appearance than satisfactory in their results. It was 
 said, by an author belonging to the last century, of 
 alchemy, " that its beginning was deceit, its progress 
 labour, and its end beggary." It may be said of 
 modern chemistry, that its beginning is pleasure, its 
 progress knowledge, and its objects truth and utility. 
 I have spoken of the scientific attainments necessary 
 for the chemical philosopher ; I will say a few words 
 of the intellectual qualities necessary for discovery or 
 for the advancement of the science. Amongst them 
 patience, industry, and neatness in manipulation, and 
 accuracy and minuteness in observing and registering 
 the phenomena which occur, are essential. A steady 
 hand and a quick eye are most useful auxiliaries ; but 
 there have been very few great chemists who have pre- 
 served these advantages through life ; for the business 
 of the laboratory is often a service of danger, and the 
 elements, like the refractory spirits of romance, though 
 the obedient slave of the magician, yet sometimes 
 escape the influence of his talisman and endanger his 
 person. Both the hands and eyes of others, however, 
 may be sometimes advantageously made use of. By 
 often repeating a process or an observation, the errors 
 connected with hasty operations or imperfect views are 
 annihilated; and, provided the assistant has no pre- 
 conceived notions of his own, and is ignorant of the 
 object of his employer in making the experiment, his 
 simple and bare detail of facts will often be the best
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 175 
 
 foundation for an opinion. With respect to the higher 
 qualities of intellect necessary for understanding and 
 developing the general laws of the science, the same 
 talents I believe are required as for making advance- 
 ment in every other department of human knowledge ; 
 I need not be very minute. The imagination must be 
 active and brilliant in seeking analogies ; yet entirely 
 under the influence of the judgment in applying them. 
 The memory must be extensive and profound ; rather, 
 however, calling up general views of things than minute 
 trains of thought. The mind must not be, like an en- 
 cyclopedia, a burthen of knowledge, but rather a criti- 
 cal dictionary which abounds in generalities, and points 
 out where more minute information may be obtained. 
 In detailing the results of experiments and in giving 
 them to the world, the chemical philosopher should 
 adopt the simplest style and manner ; he will avoid all 
 ornaments as something injurious to his subject, and 
 should bear in mind the saying of the first king of 
 Great Britain respecting a sermon which was excellent 
 in doctrine but overcharged with poetical allusions and 
 figurative language, " that the tropes and metaphors of 
 the speaker were like the brilliant wild flowers in a 
 field of corn very prettv, but which did very much 
 hurt the corn." In announcing even the greatest and 
 most important discoveries, the true philosopher will 
 communicate his details with modesty and reserve ; he 
 will rather be a useful servant of the public, bringing 
 forth a light from under his cloak when it is needed in 
 darkness, than a charlatan exhibiting fireworks and 
 having a trumpeter to announce their magnificence, i 
 see you are smiling, and think what I am saying in bad 
 taste ; yet, notwithstanding, I will provoke your smiles
 
 176 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. * 
 
 still further by saying a word or two on his other moral 
 qualities. That he should be humble-minded, you will 
 readily allow, and a diligent searcher aftei: truth, and 
 neither diverted from this great object by the love of 
 transient glory or temporary popularity, looking rather 
 to the opinion of ages than to that of a day, and seek- 
 ing to be remembered and named rather in the epochas 
 of historians than in the columns of newspaper writers 
 or journalists. He should resemble the modern geo- 
 metricians in the greatness of his views and the pro- 
 foundness of his researches, and the ancient alchemists 
 in industry and piety. I do not mean that he should 
 affix written prayers and inscriptions of recommenda- 
 tions of his processes to Providence, as was the custom 
 of Peter Wolfe, and who was alive in my early days 
 but his mind should always be awake to devotional 
 feeling, and in contemplating the variety and the 
 beauty of the external world, and developing its scien- 
 tific wonders, he will always refer to that infinite wis- 
 dom through whose beneficence he is permitted to 
 enjoy knowledge ; and, in becoming wiser, he will be- 
 come better, he will rise at once in the scale of intel- 
 lectual and moral existence, his increased sagacity will 
 be subservient to a more exalted faith, and in propor- 
 tion as the veil becomes thinner through which he sees 
 the causes of things he will admire more the bright- 
 ness of the divine light by which they are rendered 
 visible.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 177 
 
 DIALOGUE THE SIXTH. 
 
 POLA, OK TIME. 
 
 DURING our stay in Illyria, I made an excursion by 
 water with the Unknown, my preserver, now become 
 my friend, and Eubathes, to Pola, in Istria. We 
 entered the harbour of Pola in a felucca ; when the sun 
 was setting ; and I know no scene more splendid than 
 the amphitheatre seen from the sea in this light. It 
 appears not as a building in ruins, but like a newly 
 erected work, and the reflection of the colours of its 
 brilliant marble and beautiful forms seen upon the 
 calm surface of the waters gave to it a double effect 
 that of a glorious production of art and of a mag- 
 nificent picture. We examined with pleasure the re- 
 mains of the arch of Augustus and the temple, very 
 perfect monuments of imperial grandeur. But the 
 splendid exterior of the amphitheatre was not in 
 harmony with the bare and naked walls of the in- 
 terior ; there were none of those durable and grand 
 seats of marble, such as adorn the amphitheatre of 
 Yerona, from which it is probable that the whole of 
 the arena and conveniences for the spectators had been 
 constructed of wood. Their total disappearance led 
 us to reflect upon the causes of the destruction of so 
 many of the works of the older nations. I said, in our 
 metaphysical abstractions, we refer the changes, the 
 destruction of material forms, to time, but there must 
 be physical laws in Nature by which they are pro- 
 duced ; and I begged our new friend to give us some 
 ideas on this subject in his character of chemical 
 philosopher. If human science, I said, has discovered
 
 178 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 the principle of the decay of things, it is possible that 
 human art may supply means of conservation, and 
 bestow immortality on some of the works which appear 
 destined by their perfection for future ages. 
 
 The Unknown. I shall willingly communicate to 
 you my views of the operation of time, philosophically 
 considered. A great philosopher has said, man can in 
 no other way command Nature but in obeying her 
 laws ; and, in these laws, the principle of change is a 
 principle of life ; without decay, there can be no repro- 
 duction ; and everything belonging to the earth, whether 
 in its primitive state, or modified by human hands, is 
 submitted to certain and immutable laws of destruc- 
 tion, as permanent and universal as those which pro- 
 duce the planetary motions. The property which, as 
 far as our experience extends, universally belongs to 
 matter, gravitation, is the first and most general cause 
 of change in our terrestrial system ; and, whilst it pre- 
 serves the great mass of the globe in a uniform state, 
 its influence is continually producing alterations upon 
 the surface. The water, raised in vapour by the solar 
 heat, is precipitated by the cool air in the atmosphere ; 
 it is carried down by gravitation to the surface, and 
 gains its mechanical force from this law. Whatever 
 is elevated above the superfices by the powers of 
 vegetation or animal life, or by the efforts of man, by 
 gravitation constantly tends to the common centre of 
 attraction ; and the great reason of the duration of the 
 pyramid above all other forms is, that it is most fitted 
 to resist the force of gravitation. The arch, the pillar, 
 and all perpendicular constructions, are liable to fall 
 when a degradation from chemical or mechanical causes 
 takes place in their inferior parts. The forms upon
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 179 
 
 the surface of the globe are preserved from the in- 
 fluence of gravitation by the attraction of cohesion, or 
 by chemical attraction ; but if their parts had freedom 
 of motion, they would all be levelled by this power, 
 gravitation, and the globe would appear as a plane and 
 smooth oblate spheroid, flattened at the poles. The 
 attraction of cohesion or chemical attraction, in its 
 most energetic state, is not liable to be destroyed by 
 gravitation; this power only assists the agencies of 
 other causes of degradation. Attraction, of whatever 
 kind, tends, as it were, to produce rest a sort of 
 eternal sleep in Nature. The great antagonist power 
 is heat. By the influence of the sun the globe is ex- 
 posed to great varieties of temperature ; an addition 
 of heat expands bodies, and an abstraction of heat 
 causes them to contract ; by variation of heat, certain 
 kinds of matter are rendered fluid, or elastic, and 
 changes from fluids into solids, or from solids or fluids 
 into elastic substances, and vice versa, are produced; 
 and all these phenomena are connected with alterations 
 tending to the decay or destruction of bodies. It is 
 not probable that the mere contraction or expansion of 
 a solid, from the subtraction or addition of heat, tends 
 to loosen its parts ; but if water exists in these parts, 
 then its expansion, either in becoming vapour or ice, 
 tends not only to diminish their cohesion, but to break 
 them into fragments. There is, you know, a very 
 remarkable property of water its expansion by cooling, 
 and at the time of becoming ice and this is a great 
 cause of destruction in the northern climates ; for 
 where ice forms in the crevices or cavities of stones, or 
 when water which has penetrated into cement freezes, 
 its expansion acts with the force of the lever or the
 
 180 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 screw in destroying or separating the parts of bodies. 
 The mechanical powers of water, as rain, hail, or 
 snow, in descending from the atmosphere, are not 
 entirely without effect; for in acting upon the pro- 
 jections of solids, drops of water or particles of snow, 
 and still more of hail, have a power of abrasion, and a 
 very soft substance, from its mass assisting gravita- 
 tion, may break a much harder one. The glacier, by 
 its motion, grinds into powder the smface of the 
 granite rock ; and the Alpine torrents, that have their 
 origin under glaciers, are always turbid, from the 
 destruction of the rocks on which the glacier is formed. 
 The effect of a torrent in deepening its bed will 
 explain the mechanical agency of fluid-water, though 
 this effect is infinitely increased, and sometimes almost 
 entirely dependent, upon the solid matters which are 
 carried down by it. An angular fragment of stone in 
 the course of ages moved in the cavity of a rock makes 
 a deep round excavation, and is worn itself into a 
 spherical form. A torrent of rain flowing down the 
 side of a building carries with it the silicious dust, or 
 sand, or matter which the wind has deposited there, 
 and acts upon a scale infinitely more minute, but ac- 
 cording to the same law. The buildings of ancient 
 Rome have not only been liable to the constant opera- 
 tion of the rain-courses, or minute torrents produced by 
 rains, but even the Tiber, swollen with floods of the 
 Sabine mountains and the Apennines, has often en- 
 tered into the city, and a winter seldom passes away 
 in which the area of the Pantheon has not been filled 
 with water, and the reflection of the cupola seen in a 
 smooth lake below. The monuments of Egypt are 
 perhaps the most ancient and permanent of those
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 181 
 
 belonging to the earth, and in that country rain is 
 almost unknown. And all the causes of degradation 
 connected with the agency of water act more in the 
 temperate climates than in the hot ones, and most of 
 all in those countries where the inequalities of tempera- 
 ture are greatest. The mechanical effects of air are 
 principally in the action of winds in assisting the 
 operation of gravitation, and in abrading by dust, sand, 
 stones, and atmospheric water. These effects, unless 
 it be in the case of a building blown down by a tempest, 
 are imperceptible in days, or even years ; yet a gentle 
 current of air carrying the silicious sand of the desert, 
 or the dust of a road for ages against the face of a 
 structure, must ultimately tend to injure it, for with 
 infinite or unlimited duration, an extremely small cause 
 will produce a very great effect. The mechanical 
 agency of electricity is very limited; the effects of 
 lightning have, however, been witnessed, even in some 
 of the great monuments of antiquity, the Colosseum at 
 Rome, for instance ; and only last year, in a violent 
 thunderstorm, some of the marble, I have been in- 
 formed, was struck from the top of one of the arches 
 in this building, and a perpendicular rent made, of 
 some feet in diameter. But the chemical effects of 
 electricity, though excessively slow and gradual, yet 
 are much more efficient in the great work of de- 
 struction. It is to the general chemical doctrines of 
 the changes produced by this powerful agent that I 
 must now direct your especial attention. 
 
 Eub. Would not the consideration of the subject 
 have been more distinct, and your explanations of the 
 phenomena more simple, had you commenced by divid- 
 ing the causes of change into mechanical and chemical ;
 
 182 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 if you had first considered tlieiu separately, and then 
 their joint effects ? 
 
 The Unknown. The order I have adopted is not 
 very remote from this. But I was perhaps wrong in 
 treating first of the agency of gravitation, which owes 
 almost all its powers to the operation of other causes. 
 In consequence of your hint, I shall alter my plan a 
 little, and consider first the chemical agency of water. 
 then that of air, and lastly that of electricity. In 
 every species of chemical change, temperature is con- 
 cerned. But unless the results of volcanoes and earth- 
 quakes be directly referred to this power, it has no 
 chemical effect in relation to the changes ascribed to 
 time simply considered as heat, but its operations, 
 which are the most important belonging to the ter- 
 restrial cycle of changes, are blended with, or bring 
 into activity, those of other agents. One of the most 
 distinct and destructive agencies of water depends upon 
 its solvent powers, which are usually greatest when its 
 temperature is highest. Water is capable of dissolving, 
 in larger or smaller proportions, most compound bodies, 
 and the calcareous and alkaline elements of stones are 
 particularly liable to this kind of operation. When 
 water holds in solution carbonic acid, which is always 
 the case when it is precipitated from the atmosphere, 
 its power of dissolving carbonate of lime is very much 
 increased, and in the neighbourhood of great cities, 
 where the atmosphere contains a large proportion of 
 this principle, the solvent powers of rain upon the 
 marble exposed to it must be greatest. Whoever 
 examines the marble statues in the British Museum, 
 which have been removed from the exterior of the Par- 
 thenon, will be convinced that they have suffered from
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 183 
 
 this agency ; and an effect distinct in the pure atmo- 
 sphere and temperate climate of Athens, must be upon 
 a higher scale in the vicinity of other great European 
 cities, where the consumption of fuel produces carbonic 
 acid in large, quantities. Metallic substances, such as 
 iron, copper, bronze, brass, tin, and lead, whether they 
 exist in stones, or are used for support or connection in 
 buildings, are liable to be corroded by water holding in 
 solution the principles of the atmosphere ; and the rust 
 and corrosion, which are made, poetically, qualities of 
 time, depend upon the oxidating powers of water, which 
 by supplying oxygen in a dissolved or condensed state 
 enables the metals to form new combinations. All 
 the vegetable substances, exposed to water and air, 
 are liable to decay, and even the vapour in the air, 
 attracted by wood, gradually reacts upon its fibres and 
 assists decomposition, or enables its elements to take 
 new arrangements. Hence it is that none of the roofs 
 of ancient buildings more than a thousand years old 
 remain, unless it be such as are constructed of stone, 
 as those of the Pantheon of Rome and the tomb of 
 Theodoric at Ravenna, the cupola of which is com- 
 posed of a single block of marble. The pictures of 
 the Greek masters, which were painted on the wood of 
 the abies, or pine of the Mediterranean, likewise, as 
 we are informed by Pliny, owed their destruction not 
 to a change in the colours, not to the alteration of the 
 calcareous ground on which they were painted, but to 
 the decay of the tablets of wood on which the intonaco 
 or stucco was laid. Amongst the substances employed 
 in building, wood, iron, tin, and lead, are most liable 
 to decay from the operation of water, then marble, 
 when exposed to its influence in the fluid form ; brass,
 
 184 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 copper, granite, sienite, and porphyry are more durable. 
 But in stones, much depends upon the peculiar nature 
 of their constituent parts ; when the feldspar of the 
 granite rocks contains little alkali or calcareous earth, 
 it is a very permanent stone ; but, when in granite, 
 porphyry, or sienite, either the feldspar contains much 
 alkaline matter, or the mica, schorl, or hornblende 
 much protoxide of iron, the action of water containing 
 oxygen and carbonic acid on the ferruginous elements 
 tends to produce the disintegration of the stone. The 
 red granite, black sienite, and red porphyry of Egypt, 
 which are seen at Rome in obelisks, columns, and 
 sarcophagi, are amongst the most durable compound 
 stones ; but the grey granites of Corsica and Elba are 
 extremely liable to undergo alteration : the feldspar 
 contains much alkaline matter ; and the mica and schorl, 
 much protoxide of iron. A remarkable instance of the 
 decay of granite may be seen in the Hanging Tower of 
 Pisa ; whilst the marble pillars in the basement remain 
 scarcely altered, the granite ones have lost a consider- 
 able portion of their surface, which falls off continually 
 in scales, and exhibits everywhere stains from the for- 
 mation of peroxide of iron. The kaolin, or clay, used in 
 most countries for the manufacture of fine porcelain 
 or china, is generally produced from the feldspar of de- 
 composing granite, in which the cause of decay is the 
 dissolution and separation of the alkaline ingredients. 
 
 Eub. I have seen serpentines, basalts, and lavas 
 which internally were dark, and which from their 
 weight, 1 should suppose, must co-ntain oxide of iron, 
 superficially brown or red, and decomposing. Un- 
 doubtedly this was from the action of water impreg- 
 nated with air upon their ferruginous elements.
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 185 
 
 The Unknown. You are perfectly right. There 
 are few compound stones, possessing a considerable 
 specific gravity, which are not liable to change from 
 this cause ; and oxide of iron amongst the metallic 
 substances anciently known, is the most generally 
 diffused in nature, and most concerned in the changes 
 which take place on the surface of the globe. The 
 chemical action of carbonic acid is so much connected 
 with that of water, that it is scarcely possible to speak 
 of them separately, as must be evident from what I 
 have before said ; but the same action which is exerted 
 by the acid dissolved in water is likewise exerted by it 
 in its elastic state, and in this case the facility with 
 which the quantity is changed makes up for the differ- 
 ence of the degree of condensation. There is no reason 
 to believe that the azote of the atmosphere has any con- 
 siderable action in producing changes of the nature 
 we are studying on the surface ; the aqueous vapour, 
 the oxygen and the carbonic acid gas, are, however, 
 constantly in combined activity, and above all the 
 oxygen. And, whilst water, uniting its effects with 
 those of carbonic acid, tends to disintegrate the parts- 
 of stones, the oxygen acts upon vegetable matter. 
 And this great chemical agent is at once necessary,, 
 in all the processes of life and in all those of decay, in 
 which Nature, as it were, takes again to herself those 
 instruments, organs, and powers, which had for a whil& 
 been borrowed and employed for the purpose or the 
 wants of the living principle. Almost every thing- 
 effected by rapid combinations in combustion may also- 
 be effected gradually by the slow absorption of oxygen; 
 and though the productions of the animal and vegetable 
 kingdom are much more submitted to the power of
 
 186 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 atmospheric agents than those of the mineral kingdom, 
 yet, as in the instances which have just been mentioned, 
 oxygen gradually destroys the equilibrium of the ele- 
 ments of stones, and tends to reduce into powder, to 
 render fit for soils, even the hardest aggregates belong- 
 ing to our globe. Electricity, as a chemical agent, may 
 be considered not only as directly producing an infinite 
 variety of changes, but likewise as influencing almost 
 all which take place. There are not two substances on 
 the surface of the globe that are not in different elec- 
 trical relations to each other ; and chemical attraction 
 itself seems to be a peculiar form of the exhibition of 
 electrical attraction ; and wherever the atmosphere, or 
 water, or any part of the surface of the earth gains 
 accumulated electricity of a different kind from the 
 contiguous surfaces, the tendency of this electricity is 
 to produce new arrangements of the parts of these 
 surfaces; thus a positively electrified cloud, acting 
 even at a great distance on a moistened stone, tends to 
 attract its oxygenous, or acidiform or acid, ingredients, 
 and a negatively electrified cloud has the same effect 
 upon its earthy, alkaline, or metallic matter. And the 
 silent and slow operation of electricity is much more 
 important in the economy of Nature than its grand and 
 impressive operation in lightning and thunder. The 
 chemical agencies of water and air are assisted by those 
 of electricity ; and their joint effects combined with 
 those of gravitation and the mechanical ones I first 
 described are sufficient to account for the results of 
 time. But the physical powers of Nature in producing 
 decay are assisted likewise by certain agencies or 
 energies of organised beings. A polished surface of a, 
 building or a %tatue is no sooner made rough from the
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 187 
 
 causes that have been mentioned than the seeds of 
 lichens and mosses, which are constantly floating in 
 our atmosphere, make it a place of repose, grow, and 
 increase, and from their death, their decay, and decom- 
 position carbonaceous matter is produced, and at length 
 a soil is formed, in which grass can fix its roots. In 
 the crevices of walls, where this soil is washed down, 
 even the seeds of trees grow, and, gradually as a build- 
 ing becomes more ruined, ivy and other parasitical 
 plants cover it. Even the animal creation lends its aid 
 in the process of destruction when man no longer 
 labours for the conservation of his works. The fox 
 burrows amongst ruins, bats and birds nestle in the 
 cavities in walls, the snake and the lizard likewise 
 make them their habitation. Insects act upon a smaller 
 scale, but by their united energies sometimes produce 
 great effect ; the ant, by establishing her colony and 
 forming her magazines, often saps the foundations of 
 the strongest buildings, and the most insignificant 
 creatures triumph, as it were, over the grandest works 
 of man. Add to these sure and slow operations the 
 devastations of war, the effects of the destructive zeal 
 of bigotry, the predatory fury of barbarians seeking 
 for concealed wealth under the foundations of build- 
 ings, and tearing from them every metallic substance, 
 and it is rather to be wondered that any of the works 
 of the great nations of antiquity are still in existence. 
 
 Phil. Your view of the causes of devastation really 
 is a melancholy one. Nor do I see any remedy ; the 
 most important causes will always operate. Tet, 
 supposing the constant existence of a highly civilised 
 people, the ravages of time might be repaired, and by 
 defending the finest works of art from the external
 
 188 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 atmosphere, their changes would be scarcely per- 
 ceptible. 
 
 Eub. I doubt much whether it is for the interests 
 of a people that its public works should be of a durable 
 kind. One of the great causes of the decline of the 
 Roman Empire was that the people of the Republic 
 and of the first empire left nothing for their posterity 
 to do ; aqueducts, temples, forums, everything was 
 supplied, and there were no objects to awaken activity, 
 no necessity to stimulate their inventive faculties, and 
 hardly any wants to call forth their industry. 
 
 The Unknown. At least, you must allow the im- 
 portance of preserving objects of the fine arts. Almost 
 everything we have worthy of admiration is owing to 
 what has been preserved from the Greek school, and 
 the nations who have not possessed these works or 
 models have made little or no progress towards per- 
 fection. Nor does it seem that a mere imitation of 
 Nature is sufficient to produce the beautiful or perfect ; 
 but the climate, the manners, customs, and dress of the 
 people, its genius and taste, all co-operate. Such prin- 
 ciples of conservation as Philalethes has referred to are 
 obvious. No works of excellence ought to be exposed 
 to the atmosphere, and it is a great object to preserve 
 them in apartments of equable temperature and 
 extremely dry. The roofs of magnificent buildings 
 should be of materials not likely to be dissolved by 
 water or changed by air. Many electrical conductors 
 should be placed so as to prevent the slow or the rapid 
 effects of atmospheric electricity. In painting, lapis 
 lazuli or coloured hard glasses, in which the oxides are 
 not liable to change, should be used, and should be laid 
 on marble or stucco encased in stone, and no animal or
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 189 
 
 vegetable substances, except pure carbonaceous matter, 
 should be used in the pigments, and none should be 
 mixed with the varnishes. 
 
 Eub. Yet, when all is done that can be done in the 
 work of conservation, it is only producing a difference 
 in the degree of duration. And from the statements 
 that our friend has made it is evident that none of the 
 works of a mortal being can be eternal, as none of the 
 combinations of a limited intellect can be infinite. 
 The operations of Nature, when slow, are no less sure ; 
 however man may for a time usurp dominion over her, 
 she is certain of recovering her empire. He converts 
 her rocks, her stones, her trees, into forms of palaces, 
 houses, and ships ; he employs the metals found in the 
 bosom of the earth as instruments of power, and the 
 sands and clays which constitute its surface as orna- 
 ments and resources of luxury ; he imprisons air by 
 water, and tortures water by fire to change or modify 
 or destroy the natural forms of things. But, in some 
 lustrums his works begin to change, and in a few 
 centuries they decay and are in ruins ; and his mighty 
 temples, framed as it were for immortal and divine 
 purposes, and his bridges formed of granite and ribbed 
 with iron, and his walls for defence, and the splendid 
 monuments by which he has endeavoured to give 
 eternity even to his perishable remains, are gradually 
 destroyed; and these structures, which have resisted 
 the waves of the ocean, the tempests of the sky, and 
 the stroke of the lightning, shall yield to the operation 
 of the dews of heaven, of frost, rain, vapour, and im- 
 perceptible atmospheric influences ; and, as the worm 
 devours the lineaments of his mortal beauty, so the 
 lichens and the moss and the most insignificant plants
 
 190 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 shall feed upon his columns and his pyramids, and the 
 most humble and insignificant insects shall undermine 
 and sap the foundations of his colossal works, and 
 make their habitations amongst the ruins of his 
 palaces and the falling seats of his earthly glory. 
 
 Phil. Your history of the laws of the inevitable 
 destruction of material forms recalls to my memory 
 our discussion at Adelsberg. The changes of the 
 material universe are in harmony with those which 
 belong to the human body, and which you suppose to 
 be the frame or machinery of the sentient principle. 
 May we not venture to imagine that the visible and 
 tangible world, with which we are acquainted by our 
 sensations, bears the same relation to the Divine and 
 Infinite Intelligence that our organs bear to our mind, 
 with this only difference, that in the changes of the 
 divine system there is no decay, there being in the 
 order of things a perfect unity, and all the powers 
 springing from one will and being a consequence of 
 that will, are perfectly and unalterably balanced. 
 Newton seemed to apprehend, that in the laws of the 
 planetary motions there was a principle which would 
 ultimately be the cause of the destruction of the 
 system. Laplace, by pursuing and refining the prin- 
 ciples of our great philosopher, has proved that what 
 appeared sources of disorder are, in fact, the perfecting 
 machinery of the system, and that the principle of 
 conservation is as eternal as that of motion. 
 
 The Uiiknov:n. I dare not offer any speculations on 
 this grand and awful subject. We can hardly com- 
 prehend the cause of a simple atmospheric phenomenon, 
 such as the fall of a heavy body from a meteor ; we 
 cannot even embrace in one view the millionth part of
 
 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 191 
 
 the objects surrounding us, and yet we have the pre- 
 sumption to reason upon the infinite universe and the 
 eternal mind by which it was created and is governed. 
 On these subjects I have no confidence in reason, I 
 trust only to faith ; and, as far as we ought to inquire, 
 we have no other guide but revelation. 
 
 Phil. I agree with you that whenever we attempt 
 metaphysical speculations, we must begin with a foun- 
 dation of faith. And being sure from revelation that 
 God is omnipotent and omnipresent, it appears to me 
 no improper use of our faculties to trace even in the 
 natural universe the acts of His power and the results 
 of His wisdom, and to draw parallels from the infinite 
 to the finite mind. Remember, we are taught that 
 man was created in the image of God, and, I think, it 
 cannot be doubted that in the progress of society man 
 has been made a great instrument by his energies and 
 labours for improving the moral universe. Compare 
 the Greeks and Romans with the Assyrians and Baby- 
 lonians, and the ancient Greeks and Romans with the 
 nations of modern Christendom, and it cannot, I think, 
 be questioned that there has been a great superiority 
 in the latter nations, and that their improvements have 
 been subservient to a more exalted state of intellectual 
 and religious existence. If this little globe has been 
 so modified by its powerful and active inhabitants, I 
 cannot help thinking that in other systems beings of a 
 superior nature, under the influence of a divine will, 
 may act nobler parts. We know from the sacred 
 writings that there are intelligences of a higher nature 
 than man, and I cannot help sometimes referring to 
 my vision in the Colosseum, and in supposing some acts 
 of power of those genii or seraphs similar to those
 
 192 CONSOLATIONS IN TRAVEL. 
 
 which I have imagined in the higher planetary systems. 
 There is much reason to infer from astronomical ob- 
 servations that great changes take place in the system 
 of the fixed stars : Sir William Herschel, indeed, seems 
 to have believed that he saw nebulous or luminous 
 matter in the process of forming suns, and there are 
 some astronomers who believe that stars have been 
 extinct ; but it is more probable that they have dis- 
 appeared from peculiar motions. It is, perhaps, rather 
 a poetical than a philosophical idea, yet I cannot help 
 forming the opinion that genii or seraphic intelligences 
 may inhabit these systems and may be the ministers of 
 the eternal mind in producing changes in them similar 
 to those which have taken place on the earth. Time is 
 almost a human word and change entirely a human 
 idea ; in the system of Nature we should rather say 
 progress than change. The sun appears to sink in the 
 ocean in darkness, but it rises in another hemisphere ; 
 the ruins of a city fall, but they are often used to form 
 more magnificent structures as at Rome; but, even 
 when they are destroyed, so as to produce only dust. 
 Nature asserts her empire over them, and the vegetable 
 world rises in constant youth, and in a period of 
 annual successions, by the labours of man providing 
 food vitality, and beauty upon the wrecks of monu- 
 ments, which were once raised for purposes of glory, 
 but which are now applied to objects of utility. 
 
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