This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ...He asked the stars in his profanity For clearer ken of hidden mysteries; And passing quickly to a grosser work, More suited to his own most gruesome soul, Besought the smoking entrails of a beast To unfold the glories of the seventh sphere. What wisdom this! A Mediaeval lore Booted in Eastern soil, which grew apace, ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ...He asked the stars in his profanity For clearer ken of hidden mysteries; And passing quickly to a grosser work, More suited to his own most gruesome soul, Besought the smoking entrails of a beast To unfold the glories of the seventh sphere. What wisdom this! A Mediaeval lore Booted in Eastern soil, which grew apace, And nourished greatly in a Western land. It is not here. Oh! no, we find not here The summum bonum of our reasoning life. Cartesius' mound is very broad and flat; No name is seen upon it, but below A broken slab repeats the vanished theme, Cogito ergo sum. Let us pass on. On Leibnitz hill we still are fain to find The famous fish-ponds: far more lasting they Than the crude argument which they evoked. The mound of Berkeley is of solid rock, Of substance most material; he said, It lacked a real existence, a perception, Subjective phenomenon, an idea. But it remains conspicuous from afar, The Summum Bonum. 135 While his poor frame, so quick, so sensible, Has crumbled out of objectivity. We may not stay to name them one by one, We must go on more quickly, lest our halt Keep us for ever from the wished-for goal. Full many mounds we see of varied forms, Some covered with a beauteous bosky cloak From which peep ruins of forgotten shrines; While asphodel and cypress cover some, And others groves of myrtle and of bay. Some are morasses, eager to entrap The traveller's foot, and rife with fell disease. Such one is seen in an accursed mound Full of decay, too loathsome to approach, The home of vultures and of fearful ghouls, And of uncleanly beasts of varied kind; And lo! the names in fiery blazon writ Of Diderot, Holbach, and La Mettrie. Not far removed from this a hill is seen In aspect new and in proportion vast; To it there flock of every race and cree...
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