IVORKs .137» 11.1338’. 165

t0 be born, or what German philosophy denotes as
a becoming. But nothing‘ expresses that power
which seems to work for beauty’ alone. The Greek
Ahsmos did; and therefore, with great propriety,
Humboldt entitles his book, which recounts the last
results of science, Cosmos.

Such are the days,—the earth is the cup, the
sky is the cover, of the immense bounty of nature
which is offered us for our daily aliment; but what
a force of illusion begins life with us and attends
us to the end! lYe are coaxed, flattered, and
duped, from morn to eve, from birth to death; and
where is the old eye that ever saw through the
deception? The Hindoos represent hlaia, the illu-
sory energy of Vishnu, as one of his principal attri-
butes. As if, in this gale of warring elements
which life is, it was necessary’ to bind souls to hu-
man life as mariilers in a telnpest lash themselves
to the mast and bulwarks of a ship, and Nature
employed certain illusions as her ties and straps, —
a rattle, a doll, an zipple, for a child ; skates, a river,
a boat, a horse, a gun, for the growing boy ; and I
will not begin to name those of the youth and
adult, for they are numberless. Seldom and slowly
the mask falls and the pupil is permitted to see
that all is one stuff‘, cooked and painted under
many counterfeit appearances. Ilumefs (loctrinc
was that the circumstances vary, the amount of

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