The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1878-03-14
For the Citizen.l
A Portfolio Scrap.


"There is world without us, and
world within us, which exactly
correspond to each other. Unless
both exist we can never be con-
scious of either" So writes dis.
tinguished teacher of ethics.
Is it true? If so, it may be in
teresting and profitable to push in
quries in relation to it. A field may
open here of wonderful beauty, sus-
ceptible of the most extensive am-
plification and illustration. Let us
for brief space explore it.
1t is a gracious truth that the be-
nevolence of God is manifested in
the harmony which exists between
the objects of perception and the
emotions or sensations excited by
them. We are so happily constitu-
ted that our well being is secured
by the agreement of surrounding
objects with the sensibilities of the
mind. The outer world would prove
dark void were there not that
within to mirror back its loneliness.
There could be no knowledge
beauty would be rayless, and all
that is now pleasant TO look upon
become a blank in creation. But
we have the consciousness of the
qualities OF outward objects by the
sensations they excite and the emo
tons they awake in the inner man,
ditfusing there 'rapt pleasures and
fragrant joys.
A question here arises: Is the
mind capable of any real creotiOnse
May not what is called original ideas
be nothing more than an embodi-
ment of Others produced by out
ward perceptive objects? For in
stance: The poet III his highest Elf
lorts of the sublime and beautiful.
creates no new thing; he merely
combines forms of thought, the
types of images which have hoated
before his vision: or transforms or
transmutcs the mental products of
others, which were originally found
ed in modes of action seen in the
world without.
The painter, too, as he delineates
on The canvass. the beauteous as
semblage, outlining or filling up
some fancy, fairy scene, or rich, va
ried and attractive landscape, as
well as in the splendid historic pic
ture, but simply unites a tout enseua-
Die the several features, points and
views that either singly or collec-
lively have at different times ar
rested his attention and courted
his pencil
1t is not the inherent sources Of
the mind, but the volunteer offer
ings of Stree nature, above, around,
about" which afford the supply for
moulding forms of ideas, thoughts
and refiections-so adding to the
intellectual treasury of the world.
The stately historian but blends
and arranges facts already known /;
the novelist but expands and gar
nishes, or, if you please, exaggerates
common truths-making a fiction
of facts transpirilg daily in some
mode of life or society.
1t must not be supposed from
what has been above cited that the
minds energies are pent up by the
narrow, although worldwide, OBJ
iects without; or that the soul
bounds no higher than the objects
of sense. Not at all. The very ma
ture of the mind itself, its distinc-
tive and wonderful constitution, in
fers at once an order of intelligence
and excellence reigning high in the
ascendant, superior to that world of
sense which even excites its noblest
efforts.
1t is admitted that the mind has
a higher offer than the mere rehec-
ton of outward images; still these
images become the standpoints for
the soul, whence it assumes its
poise ere it plumes itself to soar
away TO realms beyond the confines
of sensuous perceptions.
Here then is an important law
brought to light, viz: the mind S
recognizance of world of ideas
beyond the one with which 1T is in
contact, through the medium OF
sense. Hence, the more successful
it is in mediating between the world
of ideas and the world of sense the
less satisfied 1t becomes with its
own revelations, and the more earn
est in its aspirations after an ex-
cellence which 'eye hath not SEEN"
MORE ANON.
Now and Then.