ledge under the dome of the visible heavens; building up cities of material philosophy and material theology, in rivalry of those other mansions which were the prospect and consolation of seers and prophets, and simple hearts, in less sophisticated ages. No wonder that she excludes useless truths from her careful foundations; for her aim is progress, in contradistinction to the immobility of philosophy, and hence she takes no cognizance even of the truth itself, unless it be presently capable of application and enlargement. This is the reason why there is no science of correspondences; the doctrine of correspondence being an abstraction standing by itself, which gains from theology no life or impetus sufficient to make it circulate downwards, and take body and clothing among the things of this world.
So great is the dread with which the inductive or scientific regard the philosophical class, that the former disregard practically the plainest and truest maxims of the latter, in order to break for ever with all knowledge which is apparently unprofitable. Truth, in its commonest forms, becomes therefore suspect to the scientific analyst, lest some root of philosophic barrenness should lurk under it. You may venture such a truism as this, that the general is made up of its appropriate particulars; but the scientific man will refuse to apply it in its own mode to organization, or any set of natural objects, or to deduce from it any of those harmonies of construction which it manifestly involves. He will rather postpone indefinitely these precious results of so plain a principle, than run the risk of landing himself among the eunuchs of philosophical systems.
It is, however, far from my intention to deny, that there are exceptions to this view, both with relation to theology and science; for there are exceptions to every general statement, and it will indeed be my object to show presently, that there is a theology in existence which not only admits the notion of correspondence, but fills it with details; and a science in outline which will receive open-armed the instructions of that theology, and apply them to natural facts, as its most ennobling function. But this theology and science are not orthodox, or central to our present state, but exceptional
