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bolts which had fallen from the sky, or were even the bolts by 

 which Satan and his angels had been driven into the abyss. 

 This thunderbolt theory is common to many countries, nor is it 

 extinct in our land even to-day ; where masses of iron pyrites 

 and fossil belemnites are very ordinarily supposed to be genuine 

 thunderbolts. I cannot resist quoting a particularly choice 

 specimen of " thunderbolt " lore, which is recorded in Tylor's 

 " Early History of Mankind," and referred to by Laing. One 

 Tollius, in 1619, thus describes some figures of stone axes 

 and hammers: — "The naturalists say they are generated in 

 the sky by a fulgurous exhalation conglobed in a cloud by the 

 circumfused humour, and are, as it were, baked hard by intense 

 heat, and the weapon becomes pointed by the damp mixed with 

 it flying from the dry part, and leaving the other end denser, but 

 the exhalations press it so hard that it breaks out through the 

 cloud and makes thunder and lightning." 



This seems to be a specimen of science as it was taught, or, 

 at any rate, learned in England 2.50 years ago. The innate love 

 of the marvellous fostered such speculations and superstitions, — 

 and yet, through it all, there was a feeling after truth. And 

 as, piece by piece, the truth is arrived at, and Science lays 

 the firm foundation upon which the fabric of increased know- 

 ledge shall rise, ancient systems are destroyed, impossible 

 figments of imagination are dispelled, old ideas change, and 

 sober thought and rational proof take their place. 



" The old order changeth, yielding place to new." 



The process of being disillusioned is, however, not always 

 an agreeable one. It is not always an easy thing to divest one- 

 self of notions and beliefs which have been a part of one's very 

 nature. Pioneers in Science in all ages have found this to their 

 cost in their efforts to replace the false with the true, and Galileo 

 and Roger Bacon in their prisons, and Giordano Bruno at the 

 stake, were martyrs to their testimony for the truth. 



IBesides, there is something of a sense of humiliation in 

 having to renounce opinions which have been held as verities, 

 from which there was no appeal. 



Imagination, too, has its roseate hues ; and its vague 

 possibilities have a real and definite charm which it is hard to 

 relinquish. But Science is inexorable, and, to the open mind, 

 the most cherished preconceptions have to fall before invincible 

 truth. 



But whilst Science is thus destntrtive towards that which is 

 founded on error, she is ronstructire concerning that which is 

 true, and not only so, but whilst she uproots the source of a 

 pleasure that is merely poetic, sensuous, .Tsthetic in its relation to 

 Natural Science, she implants a pleasure which is intellectual, 

 and a capacity for appreciating the beauty and order of Nature ; 



