REFLECTIONS ON NATURE AND ART 97 
deforms it, if our feelings are neither pained nor in- 
dignantly roused by the narrative of the historian, 
still we rise from the subject with the melancholy 
conviction that these things are perishable; that the 
cunning hand of the artificer, and the master-spirit 
of the narrator, has either passed away or will soon 
be laid in the dust ; and that these records of their 
skill or of their genius may be lost or destroyed by 
one of those thousand accidents which have already 
swept into oblivion so many similar productions 
There are few contemplative men, after viewing 
those celebrated fragments called the Elgin Marbles, 
who have turned from them without some such 
feelings as those we have described. Our wonder, 
indeed, is excited at the exquisite skill which is still 
so conspicuous in these relics; but the sight of decay 
and dilapidation is at all times melancholy. We are 
not only reminded of the instability of every thing 
human ; but a vague suspicion must cross the mind 
even of the most successful, that his own labours, upon 
which he fondly builds his hopes of deathless fame, 
may share the same fate ; and that a time may come 
when not only his works, but his very name, may be 
blotted from the records of future generations. 
(46.) If, on the other hand, we turn to those studies 
which more immediately concern Nature, we find a 
marked difference both in the facts and in the 
deductions. Here we have to do with things 
immutable, and with objects perfect in struc- 
ture. Our mental perceptions are employed in 
contemplating phenomena which have remained, 
for the most part, unchanged from the beginning, 
and will continue unchangeable so long as the laws 
H 
