324 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



At last came Man, with eager brain, 

 To ransack Earth in search of gain ; 

 And where a brook had cleft apart 

 The rocks to reach a mountain's heart, 

 Deep in the chasm he could trace 

 An ancient forest's burial-place. 

 In sheets of coal the eye could mark 

 The very texture of the bark ; 

 And see, with every tender vein 

 Still sharply outlined, clear and plain, 

 Leaves that had wooed the morning sun 

 When Time itself was scarce begun, 

 And turned to stone the giant stem 

 That wore the leafy diadem. 



Brightly my fire of coal may burn 

 Backward my thoughts, resistless, turn. 

 With keen imagination's eye 

 I see the Ages passing by : 

 I see the meteor's headlong flight ; 

 A planet's death ; the birth of light ; 

 The ancient world, unlike our own ; 

 The mighty forest turned to stone ; 

 And, scene by scene, before my eyes, 

 The whole long vanished past arise. 

 And from my grate I feel the glow 

 Of sunbeams fallen long ago, 

 Stored up by Nature's magic art 

 Within a tree's untainted heart, 

 To sleep a myriad ages long, 

 And wake the subject of a song. 



-- 



A VINDICATION OF SCIENTIFIC ETHICS.* 



By WILLIAM D. LE SUEUE, B. A. 



MR. SPENCER, in his " Data of Ethics," has not written a popu- 

 lar treatise on morals, nor has he appealed to any lower tribu- 

 nal than the highest intelligence and the maturest judgment of his 

 generation. The more I think of his book, the more it seems to me 

 a sign that shall be spoken against, but a sign, at the same time, in 

 which, or by which, great victories will be won for the human race. 



* This able article first appeared in " The Canadian Monthly," under the title of 

 of " Mr. Spencer and His Critics." 



