repulsion, growth and decay, life and death, progress and regress. But at length the end is reached, the idea shines through the more material fact. One evening the sun went down on a world without a meaning; the next morning it rose, and behold there were Bumblebees; the chaos of transient night has become the kosmos of eternal day! [Immense sensation, prolonged applause.] Shall I say the Bumblebee was created? No, gentlemen, that were to adduce a mere theory. That he came as the resultant of all the forces there or heretofore active in the universe? No more is this to be allowed in such an assembly! The Bumblebee is mind, mind in himself, for himself, of himself, by himself. So he exists of his own accord, his being is his will, he exists because he wills to be. Perhaps I might say that all things anterior to him were but an efflux from him. For with a being so vast as the Bumblebee's the effect may well precede the cause, and the non-existent Bumblebee project out of himself all actual existence! [Renewed applause.]

Such, gentlemen, is the Purpose of the World-the Bumblebee. Such is its plan-to prepare for, to provide for, to develope him. Here ends the function of the all of things. The world of matter can no further go: no more the world of mind; there can be no progress beyond us; no order of beings above us, different in their plan of structure. Look at the great facts. There are but two divisions of the universe the world of matter and the world of mind. From the nature of things there can be no more. So there are and there can be only two orders of living beings, the Protozoa, without permanent definiteness of form, and without distinct organs; and the Articulata, with permanent organs and definite form. Here can be no new animals with a different plan of structure. The possibility of matter and of mind is exhausted in us. I repeat it, gentlemen, though there may be more Protozoa, more Articulata, yet THERE CAN NEVER BE A NEW FORM OF ANIMATED BEING. The Articulata sums up and finishes the world. The choice of being is complete in us; the last sublimation of matter, that is our body; the last elevation of mind, that is ourselves, our essence. The next step would be the absolute, the infinite; nay, who shall dare declare that we are not ourselves the absolute, the infinite! [Sensation.]

Gentlemen, do not think it irreverent in me to set limits thus to the powers of the universe [Cries of "No! no!"], for we are the standard of existence, the norm of all being. Our measure was taken before the world began; all fits us, and corresponds to our stature. My antenna is the unitmeasure of all space, my thought of all time. Nay, time and space are but conditions of my body and my mind; they have no existence independent of us! My eye controls the light, my tongue is the standard of sweetness. The Bumblebee consciousness is at once the measure and the limit of all that has been, is, or ever shall be. The possibilities of mind and matter are exhausted in the universe and its plan and its purpose on the Bumblebee. sensation and applause.]

[Great

But, gentlemen, there is one faculty of our multiform consciousness I have not named as yet, though I think it the greatest of all; I mean the power of criticism, the act to praise, the act to reprehend. Let me apply this highest faculty of the Bumblebee to the universe itself, for that is the proper object of our criticism. For a Protozoa to criticise the universe it were ridiculous; so would it be for a light-winged butterfly, for a grasshopper, for a cricket, or even the largest beetle. But for us, gentlemen, the universe lies below the level of the Bumblebee consciousness; we look down thereon, and pass judgment. I will make some criticisms on the universe, and also on some of its parts.

Do not think me presumptuous in standing forth as the representative of Bumblebeedom in this matter. I have peculiar advantages. I have attained great and almost unexampled age. I have buzzed four summers; I have dozed as many winters through: the number of my years equals that of my legs and antennæ on one side, and still my eye is not dim nor my natural vigour abated. This fact gives me an advantage over all our short-lived race. My time has been devoted to science, "all summer in the field, all winter in my cell"-this has been my motto all my life. I have travelled wide, and seen the entire world. Starting from this, my ancestral spot, I made expeditions east, west, north, and south. I travelled four entire days in each direction, stopped only at the limits of the world. I have been up to the top of the highest fir-tree (abies pectinata),

VOL. XII.-Autob. and Miscell.

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yes, have flown over it, and touched the sky. I have been deeper down in the earth than any Bumblebee, ten times my own length,-it makes me shudder to think of it, and then I touched the bottom of the monstrous world. I have lived in familiarity with all the philosophers now on earth, and have gathered all that time has left of the great thinkers before me. I am well acquainted with the summits of Bumblebee consciousness in times past and present. If any Bumblebee may criticise, surely I am that one. And if I am judge of anything it is of the universe itself, for I have studied it all my life; if I know anything, or can know anything, it is the all of things,-the world of matter and the world of mind,-this then is my judgment. [Sensation.]

Of the universe in general, the all of things considered as a whole; I say I like it, and give it my emphatic approval-I admire its plan, I comprehend its wisdom, and rejoice in it-it is kindred to our own. So much for the whole universe-its plan is good, its purpose excellent, and realized in us. However, it is not so large as we have commonly supposed, nor so wonderful! But, gentlemen, when I come to speak of its parts, I confess I have my reserves; I cannot approve of all things in it-hear me in some details.

I like the nature and constitution of the Bumblebee, it is admirable, all strength. I give it my entire approval, nothing is to be added there,-infancy, how fair it is! the egg, the maggot that beautifully crawls out thence into the purple light of day! How noble its maturity! such strength in the neuters, such activity in the females, such laziness in the drones! Here comes old age. The years that bring the philosophic mind!" Gentlemen, the old Bumblebee is the handsomest thing in the world! I find no fault with our nature. But there are defects in our relation to the material world.

1. Too much time was consumed in preparing for our race. Why not accomplish it at once, or in a short space, instead of waiting all that tedious delay of the long periods indicated by the great convulsions of Geology? Certainly there was a fault somewhere. Is it in the pause of thought or of execution! Alas, I know not. Was it perhaps that the production of the Bumblebee taxed the universe to the utmost, and what she gained in power she must needs lose

in time? It may be so. Still, I repeat it, there was a weakness, a fault somewhere. The Bumblebee might have existed twenty million years before he did, and all that time was lost!

2. I find fault, also, with the proportion of the seasons; the summers are too short, the winters are too long and cold. The first frosts come too early and too abruptly. Do we not feel it so, especially when we arrive at our best years—a ripe old age.

3. The trees are too tall, such, I mean, as bear the most valuable flowers, like the elm, the maple, the linden, and the honey-locust. Why must the Bumblebee fly for his daily food to such an exceeding height?

4. The conditions of life are too difficult. Why does not honey run all day in any place, or fall each night like dew? Why must we build our houses, and not find them built? Why wage inevitable war with mandibles and stings against unequal foes? Why does the moth, insensible to stings, devour the honey we lay up, and lodge with every comb we make? Why is so much of our time consumed in these mean evils, which are only for this vile body; and why is there so little left for science and for criticism of the universe?

Yes, gentlemen, I confess it. live in! "Tis needlessly hard! choly tinge to all our literature !

This is a hard world to
This fact gives a melan-

5. Our life is too short; commonly its years do not exceed the number of legs on one side of our body: now and then it is lengthened by a simple antenna more. It should last as many years as there are legs and feelers on both sides. Then were our life decent and respectable.

Such, gentlemen, is the universe, such its parts, such its purpose and its plan. Such also its defects; and such the proud pre-eminence of the Bumblebee, who not only is its crown and its completion, but can enjoy and comprehend it all; nay, can look beyond and see its faults, and find a serene but melancholy pleasure in thinking that it might be better made! Shall we complain of our lot, at the head of each department of nature, master of two worlds? were unworthy of the Bumblebee. Let us be proud, because we are so great, and so be greater that we are so proud. Of this, dear friends, be sure. NO ORDER OF BEINGS CAN

It

EVER COME SUPERIOR TO US, FORMED AFTER A DIFFERENT STRUCTURAL PLAN: we are, and we shall ever be, the END OF the universe, its Final Cause; all things are made for us alone.

Gentlemen, I shall not long hold out; the frost of death will soon stiffen even my stalwart limbs. You will forget me for some greater one, and I shall not complain; as I succeeded so shall I be succeeded. But this shall be my last and greatest wish-may the race of philosophic Bumblebees continue for ever; their criticism of the universe, may it never cease.

With great applause the assembly welcomed these words: there was a prodigious humming, buzzing, clapping of legs and feelers and mandibles, and rustling of wings, then they flew to a clump of clover, and fed their fill, then went to sleep, and the next day went home.

JOHN BROWN'S EXPEDITION REVIEWED IN A LETTER FROM ROME TO FRANCIS JACKSON, BOSTON.

ROME, NOV. 24, 1859.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-I see by a recent telegraph, which the steamer of Nov. 2nd brought from Boston, that the court found Capt. Brown guilty, and passed sentence upon him. It is said Friday, Dec. 2nd, is fixed as the day for hanging him. So long before this reaches you my friend will have passed on to the reward of his magnanimous public services, and his pure, upright, private life. I am not well enough to be the minister to any congregation, least of all to one like that which, for so many years, helped my soul while it listened to my words. Surely the 28th Congregational Society in Boston needs a minister, not half dead, but alive all over; and yet, while reading the accounts of the affair at Harper's Ferry, and of the sayings of certain men at Boston, whom you and I know only too well, I could not help wishing I was at home again to use what poor remnant of power is left to me in defence of the True and the Right.