Swinburne, looking at the roadside crucifix ghastly in its deification of decay and death, criticises _that_--nay, scourges the idea it symbolizes, the soul-fettering dogmatism; pours on it the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, if you like--but it is because the awful vision of the real Crucified burns up before him; the tragedy of the ages, the enslaved, thwarted, hindered, persecuted _Soul of Man_. Dante beholds the severe mercy of the Great Law, "that straightens us, whom the world has made crooked." Milton, vainly endeavoring to be orthodox, to write within the limits of the dogmas, justifying the ways of his strange deity, and holding up Satan for our abhorrence, gives way to the great spirit of the Poet within him time and again; and shows, time and again, the sublime pathos of the Soul, Unchanged, though fallen on evil days. Nay, but they do not tell of these things; they make them live; they are revelations shown before us; so that our own eyes have seen, and the universe has undergone transfiguration, and ourselves. For Poetry is no little thing, no mere refinement. It is magic; it is the life of the Gods; it is the secret and spiritual nature of things. Without it, this Universe like a rotten bough, would break off from the Tree of Life. Without it, there would be no Tree of Life. It is the living sap, the greenness, the subtle vigor, and the beauty of the Tree. "THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES": by H. Coryn, M. D., M. R. C. S. Hegel, commenting upon the Pythagorean doctrine of number as the basis of all things says: Numbers have been much used as the expression of ideas. This, on one side, has a look of depth. For, that another meaning is implied in them than they immediately present, is seen at once; but how much is implied in them is known neither to him who proposes, nor by him who tries to understand.... The more obscure the thoughts, the deeper they seem; the thing is, that what is most essential, but also what is hardest, namely, the expression of one's self in definite notions--is precisely what the proposer spares himself. Upon which Stirling remarks: But the curious point is that Hegel himself adopts this very numerical symbolism, so far as it suits _the system_! It is only, indeed, when that agreement fails, that the agreement of Hegel fails also. The moment it does fail, however, his impatience breaks out. The one, the two, the three, he contentedly, even warmly and admiringly accepts, nay, "as far as five," he says, "there may well be something like a thought in numbers, _but_ on from six there are simply arbitrary determinations!" Especially, said Hegel, there is meaning in _three_, the Trinity. The Trinity is only unintelligible when considered as three separate units; its divine meaning appears when we take it as a whole. It would be a strange thing if there were no sense in what for two thousand years has been the holiest Christian idea.