Nature Mysticism Part 12

Wind-G.o.ds and wind-myths are practically of world-wide diffusion. Those of the American Indians have already been noted. Similar, if less striking and poetical, are those which prevail among the Polynesians and Maoris. Those of the Greeks and Romans are best known, but have abundant parallels in other lands. The Maruts of the Vedic hymns are unequivocally storm-G.o.ds, who uproot forests and shatter rocks--strikers, shouters, warriors--though able anon to take the form of new-born babes. The Babylonians had their wind-G.o.ds, good and bad, created in the lower part of the heaven, and joining at times in the fateful fight against the dragon. And our Teutonic fathers had their storm-G.o.ds who were brave warriors, Odin, or Wodin, being the chief. Grimm thus sums up Wodin's characteristics.

"He is the all-pervading and formative power, who bestows shape and beauty on man and all things, from whom proceeds the gift of song, and the management of war and victory, on whom at the same time depends the fertility of the soil, nay, wis.h.i.+ng and all the highest gifts and blessings." We have here a typical transition. The abstract conception of "the all-pervading creative and formative power is evidently later than that of the storm-G.o.d, rus.h.i.+ng through the air in the midst of the howling tempest--later even than that of the G.o.d who quaffs the draught of inspiration and shares it with seers, bards, and faithful fallen warriors. The idea of life or soul emerges, and frees itself from its cruder elements; the tempest G.o.d yields place to the All-Father, sitting on the throne of the world. The same evolution is seen in the case of the cloud-compelling Zeus. Nay, Jehovah Himself would seem to have been originally a G.o.d of storms, sitting above the canopy of the aerial water-flood, "making the clouds His chariot," and "walking upon the wings of the wind,"

His voice the thunder, His shaft the lightning. How strange and unexpected the transformations of these immanent ideas! Yet there is organic continuity throughout. So large is the place filled by the phenomena of the winds, that human imagination has not always stopped short at their mere personification or deification. In many American languages, we are told, the same word is used for storm and for G.o.d; so, too, with certain tribes in Central Africa. That is to say, the name for the storm-wind has become the general name for deity!

But how about the present? Can it be said that in the present day, among civilised peoples, the phenomena of the winds have any important part to play? An appeal to literature is decisive on the point. No description of open-air life, or even of life within doors where nature is not altogether shut out, can pa.s.s over the emotional influences of the winds. They sob, they moan, they sigh; they rustle, roar, or bellow; they exhilarate or depress; they suggest many and varied trains of thought.

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingrat.i.tude"--

the connection here is not altogether based on fancy--the biting winds of winter have their own emotional "tone" for susceptible minds, just as truly as the spanking breeze "that follows fast,"

or the balmy zephyr of summer, and have moulded modern thought in manifold and unsuspected modes. Sh.e.l.ley, who has been called the great laureate of the wind, contemplating the coming storm and the wild whirling of the autumn leaves, is profoundly moved and exclaims:

"O wild West-Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being-- . . . Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one, Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth."

Alexander Smith, with a spirit rendered buoyant by the blast, tells how

"The Wind, that grand old harper, smote His thunder harp of pines."

Guy de Maupa.s.sant, in the pa.s.sage already partly quoted, shows that the modern sailor can still personify. "Quel personnage, le vent, pour les marins! On en parle comme d'un homme, d'un souverain tout puissant, tantot terrible et tantot bienveillant. . . .

Aucun ennemi ne nous donne que lui la sensation du combat, ne nous force a tant de prevoyance, car il est le maitre de la mer, celui qu'on peut eviter, utiliser ou fuir, mais qu'on ne dompte jamais." Kingsley breaks forth:

"Welcome, wild North-Easter!

Shame it is to see Odes to every zephyr; Ne'er an ode to thee.

Come as came our fathers, Heralded by thee, Conquering from the eastward, Lords by land and sea.

Come, and strong within us Stir the Viking's blood, Bracing brain and sinew; Blow, thou wind of G.o.d!"

No, the power of vision is not dim, on man's part; nor, on the part of the winds of heaven, is abated their natural power to rule men's moods as they rule the responsive ocean. Those whose mystic insight is undulled by the materialistic tendencies of the age can still have glimpses of

"heaven's cherubim, hors'd Upon the sightless couriers of the air."

The untutored mind of the Indian, says Pope, sees G.o.d not only in winds, but in clouds. Clouds are, so to speak, the creations of the air, and share its mystic fortunes. Even Keble could respond to their suggestion of life, and asks:

"The clouds that wrap the setting sun, Why, as we watch their floating wreath, Seem they the breath of life to breathe?"

Wordsworth could not fail to have this experience:

"I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills."

These are genuine echoes of primitive feeling. Needless to elaborate the evidence of the ancient myths or of the beliefs of primitive peoples. Not that the evidence will not amply repay study, but that for the purpose of grasping general principles, that just adduced in the case of the winds has sufficiently served our turn. The following old Finnish prayer, however, is so fraught with significance that it would be unpardonable to pa.s.s it by. It is addressed to Ukko, the Heaven-G.o.d:

"Ukko, thou, O G.o.d above us, Thou, O Father in the heavens, Thou who rulest in the cloud-land, And the little cloud-lambs leadest, Send us down the rain from heaven, Make the drops to drop with honey, Let the drooping corn look upward, Let the grain with plenty rustle."

This beautiful little poem-prayer places us about midway in the development of the conscious expression of the mystic influences exercised by cloud-land. We see how, as with the winds, the clouds have played a severely practical role among the conditions which have rendered human life possible upon the globe. The original animistic conception of the clouds as themselves personal agents has yielded to that of a G.o.d who rules the clouds, though the animistic tendency still remains in the expression, "the little cloud-lambs." Now we have pa.s.sed to the stage of modern animism which regards the clouds as a part of a vast system, the essential being of which must be described as consciousness.

The chief of the ideas immanent in cloud scenery would seem to be the vagueness and unsubstantiality of its ever-changing pageantry, prompting dreams of glorious possibilities which our earthly environment is yet too gross to realise. At any rate, it is safe to a.s.sert that this const.i.tuted its main charm for the pa.s.sionately visionary soul of Sh.e.l.ley. Study this description of a cloud-scape--one among a host which could be gathered from his poems:

"The charm in which the sun has sunk, is shut By darkest barriers of enormous cloud, Like mountain over mountain huddled--but Growing and moving upwards in a crowd, And over it a s.p.a.ce of watery blue, Which the keen evening star is s.h.i.+ning through."

Or study that poem, unsurpa.s.sable of its kind, devoted wholly to this theme--especially the stanza which closes it:

"I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky; I pa.s.s through the pores of the ocean and sh.o.r.es; I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb I arise and unbuild it again."

How crammed are these lines with the purest Nature Mysticism as moderns understand it! The sense of living process reigns supreme. They are the offspring, not of fancy, nor even of imagination as ordinarily conceived--but of insight, of vision, of living communion with a living world.

It is tempting, while dealing with the airy realms of cloud-land, to dwell at length on the mystic influence of the queen of aerial phenomena--the rainbow. That influence in the past has been immense; it still is, and ever will be, a power to be reckoned with. Science cannot rob it of its glories. The gold-winged Iris of Homer, swifter-footed than the wind, has pa.s.sed. The Genesis story of "the bow in the cloud" may dissolve in the alembic of criticism--but the rainbow itself remains, still a sevenfold bridge of souls from this solid-seeming earth to a rarer land beyond. Who is there who cannot sympathise with Wordsworth?

"My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky.

So was it when I was a child; So it is now I am a man; So let it be when I am old-- Or let me die."

Tempting is it also to treat of the birds--the denizens of the air-- to comment on the exquisite trio of bird-poems, Wordsworth's "Cuckoo," Sh.e.l.ley's "Ode to a Skylark," and Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale." For a.s.suredly it is the medium in which these delicate creatures pa.s.s their lives that gives them the chiefest share of their magic and their mystery. But this gem from Victor Hugo must suffice for all the tuneful choir:

"Like a songbird be thou on life's bough, Lifting thy lay of love.

So sing to its shaking, So spring at its breaking, Into the heaven above."

The dome of air thus expands into the dome of heaven with its eternal fires, and bids us turn to the third of the ancient sages whose speculations are aiding our steps in this tentative study.

CHAPTER XXVII

HERACLEITUS AND THE COSMIC FIRE

Heracleitus is a philosopher whose speculations are of surpa.s.sing interest for the student of Nature Mysticism. He was born about 540 B.C., at Ephesus, and lived some sixty years. He was one of the most remarkable thinkers of antiquity, and the main substance of his teaching remains as a living and stimulating element in the most advanced scientific and metaphysical doctrines of the present day. But taking the point of view of the nature-mystic, he derives his special significance from the manner of his early training, and from the source of his early inspirations.

While still a youth, he forsook the bustle of the city for the solitude and charm of the lovely country which surrounded his home, and he definitely set himself to feed his imagination on the concrete and sensuous imagery of the poets. He laid himself open to the impressions and intuitions which such an environment so richly provided, and thus laid the foundation for those speculations on the nature of the universe and of life which have rendered his influence so lasting and his fame so great.

He is undoubtedly difficult to understand, and his cryptic utterances earned for him the doubtful t.i.tle of the Dark. But his champions have pointed out that his obscurity of diction was not the outcome of pride or intentional a.s.sumption of mystery, but of the genuine difficulty he found in giving expression to his novel thoughts. He waxes vehement in his struggles to subdue his language to his purposes, his vague intuitions, his movements in worlds not fully realised; and in this regard he can at any rate claim the sympathy of mystics of every school.

Such was the man and such his training. What was his central, dominating thought? What was his conception of the universal Ground of existence? It was this--Pure Fire--motion is the secret of the eternal change which characterises all known phenomena of every grade and kind. "All things flow" is the far-famed aphorism which sums up his philosophy. This eternal movement is not, however, formless, but is determined to ever-recurrent forms, and is obedient to law and rhythm.

He taught, then, that the eternal movement which const.i.tutes existence is Fire. "This one order of all things (he affirms) was created by none of the G.o.ds, nor yet by any of mankind; but it was ever, and is, and shall be, eternal fire-ignited by measure and extinguished by measure." But more--he held that this Fire-motion is alive. It will be remembered that Thales had placed the cause of motion in matter itself, not in something other than matter; that is to say, he was to all intents and purposes a hylozoist. Heracleitus went a step farther, and maintained that the life in Fire-motion is _organic_, like to that which is manifested in the plant and animal worlds. His idea of the essential kins.h.i.+p of all things is very clear and complete.

He conceived, therefore, that soul is in no way fundamentally distinct from any other of the transformations of the ever-living Fire. And thus the problem which so grievously torments modern psychologists, that of the connection between soul and body, did not exist for him. And a notable corollary of his view is this. Since man has essential kins.h.i.+p with his environment, he can apprehend both the outer surface of things and their inner law; and it is in this recognition of their inner law that his true nature is to be found. Now if it be granted that this inner law can be apprehended by intuition as well as by conscious reasoning process, the corollary is one to which the nature-mystic can of his own master principle.

The soul, as fire, depends on the cosmic Fire for sustenance, the breath being the physical medium; and in this regard, all that was said of Anaximenes and "Breath," or Air, will have its place. But Heracleitus has a further thought which is in full harmony with the nature-mystic's chief contention. He holds that _sense perception_ is also a medium, for the outer fire is thereby absorbed by the inner fire. The value of this thought remains in spite of the sage's doctrine of the body. For though the body is regarded by him as a clog on the activity of the inner fire, because it consists of water and earth (two forms in which the movement of the Fire is greatly reduced) it is nevertheless akin to the soul, and is itself destined, in the course of ceaseless change, to become Fire in its most living and active form.

Such is the central doctrine of this noted thinker, round which all his other teaching turned. Let us now ask, as in the corresponding cases of Thales and Anaximander, why the particular element was chosen as the Ground of all things. The answer to this question will furnish, as in the previous cases, much matter for our special purpose, since the emphasis will lie rather on the physical properties and functions of fire, than on its more abstract ontology.

It is obvious that Heracleitus would start with a knowledge of the speculations of his more immediate predecessors, and of the data on which they were based--the phenomena of circulation in nature, evaporation, mist, rain, melting, freezing, and the rest.

And we find that in this direction he merely amplified the older systems, taking fire, instead of water or air, as his _Welt-stoff_.

He also observed, with special care, certain suggestive cases of rarefaction by heat and condensation by cold; as also the facts of constant decomposition and renewal in the vegetable and animal worlds. But the phenomenon which stands out as the chiefest determinant of his thought is one which is always bound to act as a powerful stimulant on a thoughtful mind--that of combustion.

The flame of an ordinary fire can still be a thing of wonder to the man whose mind is open to receive impressions even from the commonplace. How illusive it is!--dancing, darting, flickering, flas.h.i.+ng--appearing, disappearing--unsubstantial yet active and almost miraculously potent. The effect upon the mind of primitive man must have been keen and vivid to the highest degree, and must have produced results of corresponding significance upon his spiritual development.

But the deeper kind of wonder is reserved for the systematic speculative thinker, whose attention is arrested by the phenomena of a steadily burning flame, say that of a lamp. The oil is sucked up into the wick and slowly decreases in volume.

At the point where the flame begins it rises in vapour, becomes brilliant, and, in the case of a clear flame, disappears. There is thus a constant movement from below upwards. The flame has all the appearance of a "thing," with comparatively definite form and continued existence, and yet is never really the same, not for the minutest fraction of a moment. It is an appearance born of incessant motion--let the motion stop, the flame is gone.

Where the burning is accompanied by smoke, there is an apparent return of volatilised matter to solid form.