The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1862-12-20
Abstraction.

distractions. 1he sOphlsms OF Ialse
disputants are classed in the same cate
CORY. Indeed almost everything that is
called an abstraction by the superficial,
is nything else than an abstraction.
The etymology Of the word will not do
much to aid us in UNDERESTIMATE the true
meaning of the term. 1t is only by
profound analysis of subjects that we
can comprehend this term. II is true
thati is derived from alb and traho and
means TO draw from in material sense,
but there is higher, more beautiful
sense in which the word is used. "Words
are the mirrors of the soul" To know
their meaning is to comprehend the mind,
TO go where it goes and enjoy what it
enjoys. There are forms of sense and
forms Of thought There are forms pal
pable, phenomena, and forms intellectual
ultimate, eternal, uncreateG. All the
sensible is but the phenomena of the
pure. II is the pure before it is embodied.
The rude comprehend the sensible before
the intellectual. Now abstraction in its
highest sense is the process of penetrat-
ing through the tangible and perishable
to the pure and undecaying. 1t is the
capacity of the sculptor, the painter, the
orator, the musician, the poet, the philosO-
pher, the mathematician, the statesman,
and the inventor of all the utilities of
life. The sculptor looks upon the block
of Parian marble, which to the ordinary
sophst is rude, formless, lifeless matter.
Not SO to the abstractionist, he sees be-
meath the exterior of the lifeless mass,
beauty, life, grace, elegance; he beholds
there lovely form bound up by the
despotism of the practical, who see an
object TO build walls and ward off in
truders. The dreamer takes up his ham
mer and chisel and with ceaseless energy
and toll he knocks off whole showers of
the fragments that seem to enclose the form
of beauty that he sees to lie beneath
the rude exterior. Days, weeks, months
and years be works to set free the i'm
prisoned form. At last all obstacles
yield, and from the shapeless block comes
forth the Apollo Belvidere, the Venus De
Medicis, or that lone slave of POWERS, all
glowing with life, beauty, truth, and
good How the soul rises into the re-
gions of the spiritual as it gazes on those
forms, that grace that Incompatible ex-
cellence, that divine intelligence that
beams forth like the rays from the burn
ing sun, from these creations of dream
ing abstractionists. A RAPHAEL sees in
piece Of CANVASS the form of one of his
own inimitable Madonnas. The dull
sophist or plodding materialist perceives
nothing but piece of cloth that might
repel the rains or winds. The abstrac-
ZIONIST dips his brush in a colored fluid
and begins to trace the boundaries OF his
thought, and after hours of toll he has
succeeded in transferring his own pure
form, the creation of his soul, to the can
yass. He thus restores himself TO hu-
manity by giving distractions to man
kind. His forms become theirs, his soul
dwells amidst his fellows, for he has given
them a new creation. NEWTON beholds
an apple fall from tree, very common
event, but from it the dreamer evOkes the
principle Of attraction, and demonstrates
the laws thai regulate the physical uni
verse. The statesman looks at the daily
avocations and conduct of men, and from
these calls out government, law, order
institutions and history itself. He an
nounces a single thought as liberty, glo-
nv, life, and arms are extracted by an
other dreamer from the yellow dust
on which we tread; these are rendered
destructive by that same impracticablG
man, the chemist, who asserts that few
grains of matter may suddenly be made
TO fill great space. He has found no"
this force can give destructive velocity
and direction TO matter. Again, tina
prodigy of idle abstractionists that silt
in his room at his table making figures
finds out how these arms are TO be eleVa
ted to effect the desired end. To estab'
lish one thought, armies and navies arise
generations are swept away, cities are
turned into ashes. All this sublime as
semblage of phenomena is necessary tt
demonstrate one solitary principle
There is no great mind that has not il
an eminent degree this capacity, thi
creative faculty. 1t often happens tina
one mind creates or discovers the form
and another demonstrates. The iorme
are called theorists, the latter actors. A