Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1872-06-05
LETTER AND SPIRIT.
BY o. d. FRoTHINGHAM.

creates the letter. Thought and speech
exist almost Simultaneously. They
cling to each othersO closely that they
are practically inseparable. We can
not think of them as apart; each
seems to depend on the other for life.
We think in words, and our power OF
thinking is conditional on "ur voeab.
ulary. Still the thinking is first in
order of development. The dietion-
ary does not generate mind; mind
generates dictionary. The letter is a
product; it produces nothing; it re-
tains, preserves, conveys, but il does
not produce. 1t is jar, not wine.
The book does not make brains; the
picture does not make the sense of
| beauty in color; the statue does not
make the sense of plastic beauty; the
code does not make justice; the creed
does not make faith; the altar does
not make devotion; the temple does
/ not make worship. So far from it,
the letter is not always able to pre-
serve the spirit that created il. There
are books which nobody can read. so
completely has the intellieenee passed
from them; pictures whence the in
spring soul has departed; statues
whose purpose is lost; codes that the
| lawyers cannot interpret; ereeds fthe
Athanasian, for instance) that the
/ theOlOgians cannot explain, the ori-
ginal design whereof is no longer dis
eOverable, is scarcely any more i'm
aginable. People reeite, Sunday after
Sunday, with every sign of rever-
ence, the NIeene and the Apostles
eIeeds with minds worse than vacant,
minds incompetent to receive the
ideas they were meant to express, even
if they were presented There are
monuments that once were speaking
memorials, but now are only dumb
riddles inscriptions that once con-
ve6ed lessons to the simplest minds,
hut now tell nothing to the antigua
rian; symbols that once sparkled with
significance, but now are lifeless dia-
grams and signs. AS the snake leaves
his shining shreds Of skin among the
bushes, so do wisdom and feeling
leave their parable coverings all about
in libraries, churches, museums, pOpu-
lOus cities, and wastes of sand. AS
the serpent clothes himselfanew with
glittering scales, so the eternal serpent
of wisdom takes on fresh coverings to
suit his need.
Spirit is commonly thought of as
one identical substance or force. We
speak of the spirit as if there was but
q single spirit, which was manifest
under diverse forms. But, speaking
nationally, the spirit is as various as
the letter. The spirit of the thing is
simply the design or intention of the
thing. The spirit of life is its ruling
purpose; the spirit of philosophy is
its intellectual drift; the spirit of q
literature is its prevailing tone; the
spirit of a school of art or of science,
Of an age or civilization, is merely
the predominating temper of thought
or sentimental or animating eOnvic-
tion that gives it form. The form
depends upon the spirit, and each
form has its own spirit. The Asiatic
spirit was monOtOny, immOvability,
passiveness; the European spirit is
change, activity, restlessness. The
spirit of the Semitic races is unity;
the spirit Of the Aryan races is vari-
ETY.. The Old Testament spirit is law;
the New Testament spirit is love-
The Greek spirit was intellectual
the Roman spirit was moral. The
Greek art was animated by the spirit
of beauty: the Byzantine art was ami
mated by the spirit of tradition. The
feudal spirit was aristOcratie; the
modern spirit Is democratic. The
spirit of ROmanism is authority the
spirit of Professionalism is freedom. To
find the spirit Of an epoch or a civili-
Zation, il is necessary to penetrate be-
hind the letter that gives it mOmen.
tary expression. To read the spirit in
the letter,to reproduce the spirit thIO'
the letter, to recover the spirit by
means of the letter, is difficult; for all
but the keen sighted and sympathetic Z
a hopeless task. We must eontrive /
by large, fine, appreeiative study to /
discover what the spirit was and then !
take up the letter and give interpre- !
tatiOn to its separate phases and /
words. This is what the German 1
critics did for Homer. 1t is what /
Henry Ewald has done for the Old |
Testament; what Baur, Sehwegler,
Zeller, and the scholars of the Tubin
gen school have done for the New.
To give now some illustrations of
the general doctrine laid dOwE. let US
looK at the relation of letter and spirit
rs exhibited in the Hebrew Scrip
lures. A controversy has been raging
for a great while, and has been grow
ng hotter the longer it lasted, be-
tween the account of the creation of
he world as reported in the opening
chapters of the book o Genesis, and
he opinions of scientific men on the
anne point. Genesis says that the
world was created by immediate,
ipeeial act of viii; science says e was {
rot created at all, but evolved. Gene
il, SAYS that the world was made in
TX days; science will not name the !
Millions of years during which the
process of becoming has been going
m. Genesis declares the world fin
shed, complete, and ''goOd" on the :
evening of the sixth day sieEce de-
.lares the world very for from finish
a, complete, or good to-day. Gene l
is asserts that the creative power s
,aused and rested; science affirms that {
he creative power, whatever it may /
'e, never ceases. The discrepancy is I
bsolute, the contradiction abrupt, I
he dispute irreeoncllable. Sc long
s the letter of the document Is con- c
ulted alone, the eombatants can S
ONE to no terms; the letter cannot
e twisted into any form that will
ring it into accord with modern
But suppose we try to
nd the spirit beneath the letter, the |
urpOse of the man who wrote Gene l
is. Suppose we assume, as we have !
perfect right to do, judging the doc I
ment nationally, that his design was Il
imply to describe the CT, alton of the 8
inverse as well as he could do with v
be small knowledge he had, making \
o pretenee that his knowledge was Y
or his description adequate. Z
lie wished, we will say, to give an c
IMPRESSION of the dignity, majesty. i
lory of the universe, and the lOfti- 81
ess of its origin. There was no sci r
nee then, nor any crepuscular daw- r
ing of science; there was wonder, II
imiratiOn, sensibility, poetic imagi u
alton, but knowledge such a =
.hoOl boy would not except. What u
as he to do? Precisely what he did, n
course; paint his picture with such -
gments and such laws of line and n
as he had. The same man II
wing tO day might, would probably, ii
ie such material as the artists have
no live to- day. Being pOetical, he
Ould no doubt select the "nebular in
lpOthesis" as the most plausible ae- aC
unit o. the universe, and make a bI
scrlptiOn before which Darwin and W
uxley and Spencer would stand de W
,hted. The man who, four thou dC
nd years ago, perhaps, with the pl
eagre material existing then struck | it
I a sketch so magnificent as that in in
snesis, would in our time give a fl