The Progressionists, and Angela. Part 50

"All is of no avail. The activity of the animal world affords no diversion, the benumbing strokes of materialism lose their effect. The rare becomes common, and does not attract attention. There walks an angel in the splendor of superior excellence, and I endeavor in vain to distract my mind from her by studying the animals. I follow willingly the professors' exact investigations, into the labyrinth of their studied arguments to make it appear that I am only an animal, that all our sentiment is only imagination and fallacy. It is all in vain. Can these gentlemen teach me how we can cease to have admiration for the n.o.ble and exalted? Here man forcibly breaks through. Here self, irresistible and disgusted with error, brings the n.o.bility of human nature to consciousness, and all the wisdom of boasted materialism becomes idle nonsense."

"Thank G.o.d! I see you again, my dear neighbor," said Siegwart cordially. "Where have you kept yourself this last week? Why do you no longer visit us? My whole house is excited about you. Henry is angry because he cannot show you the horses he bought lately. My wife bothers her head with all kinds of forebodings, and Angela urged me to send and see if you were ill."

A new life permeated Frank's whole being at these last words; his cheeks flushed and his languid eyes brightened up.

"I know no good reason as an apology, dear friend. Be a.s.sured, however, that the apparent neglect does not arise from any coolness toward you and your esteemed family." And he drew marks in the sand with his cane.

"Perhaps your father took offence at your visits to us?"

"Oh! no. No; I alone am to blame."

Siegwart gave a searching glance at the pale face of the young man who, broken-spirited, stood before him, and whose mental condition he did not understand, although he had a vague idea of it.

"I will not press you further," said he cheerfully. "But, as a punishment, you must now come with me. I received yesterday a fresh supply of genuine Havanas, and you must try them."

He took Richard by the arm, and the latter yielded to the friendly compulsion. They went through the vineyard. Frank broke from a twig a folded leaf.

"Do you know the cause of this?"

"Oh! yes; it is the work of the vine-weevil," answered Siegwart. "These mischief-makers sometimes cause great damage to the vineyards. Some years I have their nests gathered and the eggs destroyed to prevent their doing damage."

"You consider every thing with the eyes of an economist. But I admire the art, the foresight, and the intelligence of these insects."

"Intelligence--foresight of an insect!" repeated Siegwart, astonished.

"I see in the whole affair neither intelligence nor foresight."

"But just look here," said Richard, carefully unfolding the leaf. "What a degree of considerate management is necessary to fix the leaf in such order. The ribs of this leaf are stronger than the force of the beetle.

Yet he wished to fold the eggs in it. What does he do? He first pierces the stem with his pincers; in consequence of this, the leaf curls up and becomes soft and pliable to the frail feet of the insect. This is the first act of reflection. The piercing of the stem had evidently as its object to cause the leaf to roll up. Then he begins to work with a perfection that would do honor to human skill. The leaf is rolled up in order to put the eggs in the folds. Here is the first egg; he rolls further--here is the second egg, some distance from the first, in order to have sufficient food for the young worm--again an act of reflection; lastly, he finishes the roll with a carefully worked point, to prevent the leaf from unfolding--again an act of reflection."

Siegwart heard all this with indifference. What Richard told him he had known for years. His employment in the fields revealed to his observing mind wonderful facts in nature and in the animal world. The wisdom of the vine-weevil gave him ho difficulty. He looked again in Frank's deep-sunken eyes and noticed a peculiar expression, and in his countenance great anxiety.

He concluded that the work of the vine-weevil must have some connection with the young man's condition.

"You see actions of reflection and design where I see only unconscious instinct."

Frank became nervous.

"The common evasion of superficial examination!" cried he. "Man must be just even to the animals. Their works are artistic, intelligent, and considerate. Why then deny to animals those powers which operate with intelligence and reflection?"

"I do not for a moment dispute this power of the animals," replied the proprietor quickly. "You find mind in the animals?" interrupted Frank hastily. "This conviction once reached, have you considered the consequences that follow?"--and he became more excited. "Have you considered that with this admission the whole world becomes a fabulous structure, without any higher object? If the spider is equal to man, then its torn web that flutters in the wind is worth as much as the crumbling fragments of art which remain from cla.s.sic antiquity. Virtue, the careful restraining of the pa.s.sions, is stark madness. The disgusting ape, l.u.s.tful and brutish, is as good as the purest virgin who performs severe penances for her idle dreams. It is with justice that the criminal scoffs at the good as bedlamites who, with fanatical delusion, strive for castles in the air. Every outcast from society, sunk and saturated in the basest vices, is precisely as good as the purest soul and the n.o.blest heart; for all distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, is destroyed."

Angela's father gazed with solicitude into the perplexed look and distorted countenance of the young man.

"You deduce consequences, Herr Frank, that could not be drawn from my admissions," said he mildly. "There is no conscious power in animals--no reflecting soul. The animal works with the power that is in it, as light and heat in the fire, as in the lightning the destructive force, as the exciting and purifying effects in the storm. The animal does not act freely, like man; but from necessity--according to instinct and laws which the Almighty has imposed, upon it."

"A gratuitous a.s.sumption! A shallow artifice," exclaimed Frank. "The animal shows understanding, design, and will; we must not deny him these faculties."

"If the lightning strikes my house and discovers with infallible certainty all the metal in the walls, even where the sharpest eye could not detect it, must you recognize mental faculties in the lightning in discovering the metal?"

Frank hemmed and was silent.

"What a botcher is the most learned chemist compared with the root-fibres of the smallest plant," continued Siegwart. "Every plant has its own peculiar life; this I observe every day. All plants do not flourish alike in the same soil. They only flourish where they find the necessary conditions for their peculiar life; where they find in the air and earth the conditions necessary for their existence. Set ten different kinds of plants together in a small plat of ground. The different fibres will always seek and absorb only that material in the earth which is proper to their kind; they will pa.s.s by the useless and injurious substances. Now, where is the chemist who with such certainty, such power of discrimination, and knowledge of substances, can select from the inert clod the proper material? A chemist with such knowledge does not exist. Now, must you admit that the fibres possess as keen an understanding and as deep a knowledge of chemistry as the man who is versed in chemistry?"

"That would be manifest folly."

"Well," concluded Siegwart quietly, "if the vine-weevil weaves its wrapper, the spider its web, the bird builds its nest, and the beaver his house, they all do it in their way, as the root-fibres in theirs."

Richard remained silent, and they pa.s.sed into the house.

Angela and her mother looked with astonishment and sympathy on their friend.

Soon in the mild countenance of Madam Siegwart there appeared nearly the same expression as in the first days after the death of Eliza--so much did the painful appearance of the young man afflict her. Angela turned pale, her eyes filled, and she strove to hide her emotion. Frank only looked at her furtively. Whatever he had to say to her, he said with averted eyes. Siegwart expended all his powers of amus.e.m.e.nt; but he did not succeed in cheering the young man. He continued depressed, embarra.s.sed, and sad, and constantly avoided looking at Angela. When she spoke he listened to the sound of her voice, but avoided her look.

Presently a low barking was heard in the room and Hector, who had growlingly received Frank at his first visit, but who in time had become an acquaintance of his, lay stretched at full length dreaming.

Scarcely did Richard notice the dreaming animal when he exclaimed,

"The dog dreams! See how his feet move in the chase, how he opens his nostrils, how he barks, how his limbs reach for the game! The dog dreams he is in the chase."

"I have often observed Hector's dreams," said Siegwart coolly.

Frank continued,

"Have you considered the consequences that follow from the dreams of the dog? Dreams show a thinking faculty," said he hastily. "Animals, then, think like men; thoughts are the children of the mind; therefore, animals have minds. Animals and men are alike."

Angela started at these words. Her mother shook her head.

"You conclude too hastily, my dear friend," said Siegwart coolly. "You must first know that animals dream like men. Men think, reflect, and speak in dreams. The dreams of animals are very different from those mental acts."

"How will you explain it?" said Richard excitedly.

"Very easily. Hector is now in the chase. The dog's sense of smell is remarkable. By means of the fragrant wind Hector smells the partridges miles away. He acts then just as in the dream; feet, nose, and limbs come into activity. Suppose that in the surrounding fields there is a covey of partridges. The air would indicate them to Hector's smelling organs; these organs act, as in the waking state, on the brain of the animal; the brain acts on the other organs. Where is there thought?

Have we not a purely material effect? The cough, the appet.i.te, the sneezing, the aversion--what have all these to do with mind or thought?

Nothing at all. The dream of the dog is an entirely muscular process, the mere co-working of the muscular organs; as with us, digestion, the flowing of the blood, the twitching of the muscles--facts with which the mind has nothing to do."

"Your a.s.sertion is based on the a.s.sumption that partridges are near,"

said Richard; "and I will be obliged to you if, with Hector's a.s.sistance, you convince me of this fact."

"That is unnecessary, my dear friend. Suppose there are no partridges in the neighborhood. The same affection of the brain which would be produced by the smell of the partridges could be produced by accident.

If it is accidental, it will have the same effect in the sleeping condition of the dog.[2] Affections accidentally arise in man the causes of which are not known. We are uneasy, we know not why; we are discouraged without any knowledge of the cause. We are joyful without being able to give any reason for it. The mind can rise above all these dispositions, affections, and humors; can govern, cast out, and disperse them. Proof enough that a king lives in man--the breath of G.o.d, which is not taken from the earth, and to which all matter must yield if that power so wills."

The dog stretched his strong legs without any idea of the important question to which he had given occasion.

"Herr Frank," began Madam Siegwart earnestly, "I have learned to respect you, and have often wished that my son, at your years, would be like you. I see now with painful astonishment that you defend opinions which contradict your former expressions, and the sentiments we must expect from a Christian. Will you not be so good as to tell me how you have so suddenly changed your views?"

"Esteemed madam," answered Frank, with emotion, "I thank you for this undeserved motherly sympathy; but I beg of you not to believe that the opinions I expressed are my firm convictions. No, I have not yet fallen so deep that for me there is no difference between man and beast. I can yet continue to believe that materialism is a crime against mankind. On the other hand, I freely acknowledge that my mind is in great trouble; that every firm position beneath my feet totters; that I have been tempted to hold doctrines degrading to the individual and destructive to society. I have been brought into this difficulty by reading books whose seductive proofs I am not able to refute. Oh! I am miserable, very miserable; my appearance must have shown you that already."

He looked involuntarily at Angela; he saw tears in her eyes; he bowed his head and was silent.

"I see your difficulties," said the proprietor. "They enter early or late into the mind of every man. It is good, in such uncertainties and doubts, to lean on the authority of truth. This authority can only be G.o.d, who is truth itself, who came down from heaven and brought light into the darkness. We can prove, inquire, and speculate; but the keenest human intellect is not always free from delusion. As there is in man a spiritual tendency which raises him far above the visible and material, G.o.d has been pleased to lead and direct that tendency by revelation, that man may not err. I consider divine revelation a necessity which G.o.d willed when he created the mind. As the mind has an instinctive thirst after truth, G.o.d must, by the revelation of truth, satisfy this thirst Therefore is revelation as old as the human race.