Physical Theory of Another Life

te results of analysis and abstraction. It is not the imagination that can render us aid in conceiving of a new and different mode of existence, since it is but the mirror of the world around it, and draws all its materials from things actually known. It may exalt, refine, ennoble, enrich, what it finds ; and may shed over all the splendour of an effulgence such as earth never sees ; yet it must end where it began, in compounding elements, and in recombining forms furnished to its hand; and if ever it goes, or seems to go, beyond these materials, the product is grotesque or absurd, not beautiful: there is no symmetry in that which trenches upon the actual forms of nature. But the faculty of analysis may boldly and safely outstep the imagination; and may, by a careful examination of the constituents of human nature, considered in their abstract value, be able, in accordance with sound principles of analogy, to point out other modes of construction such as, while they imply only small actual changes of form, involve high prerogatives. In some of these instances it may not be difficult to assign a reason why such prerogatives should not have been granted to man, in his present condition; and yet it may be equally easy, or nearly so, to show that they are abstractedly possible, and that they are compatible one with another, and that they comport with the probable purposes of a higher range of intellectual and moral life. And be it always remembered that although...