The thought with which the last chapter closed opens up views which are boundless. Through the imaginative apprehension of outward Nature, and through the beauty inherent in it, we get a glimpse into the connection of the visible world with the realities of morality and of religion. The vivid feeling of Beauty suggests, what other avenues of thought more fully disclose, that the complicated mechanism of Nature which Science investigates and formulates into physical law is not the whole, that it is but the case or outer shell of something greater and better than itself, that through this mechanism and above it, within it, and beyond it, there lie existences which Science has not yet formulated—probably never can formulate—a supersensible world, which, to the soul, is more real and of higher import than any which the senses reveal. It is apprehended by other faculties than those through which Science works, yet it is in no way opposed to science, but in perfect harmony with it, while transcending it. The mechanical explanation of things—of the Universe—we accept as far as it goes, but we refuse to take it as the whole account of the matter, for we know, on the testimony of moral and spiritual powers, that there is more beyond, and that that which is behind and beyond the mechanism is higher and nobler than the mechanism. We refuse to regard the Universe as only a machine, and hold by the intuitions of faith and of Poetry, though the objects which these let in on us cannot be counted, measured, or weighed, or verified by any of the tests which some physicists demand as the only gauges of reality. This ideal but most real region, which the visible world in part hides from us, in part reveals, is the abode of that supersensible truth to which conscience witnesses,—the special dwelling-place of the One Supreme Mind. The mechanical world and the ideal or spiritual are both actual. Neither is to be denied, and Imagination and Poetry do their best work when they body forth those glimpses of beauty and goodness which flash upon us through the outer shell of Nature’s mechanism. But “Descending From these imaginative heights,” we must turn to the humbler task of showing by a few concrete examples how Imagination has actually worked on the plastic stuff supplied by Nature. To this the readiest way would be to turn to the works of the great poets, and see how they, as a matter of fact, have dealt with the outward world. Before doing so, however, a few words may be given to the marks which Imagination has impressed on Nature in the prehistoric and preliterary ages. The record of this process lies imbedded in two fossil creations, Language and Mythology.