18 
the contact of the closely adjacent opaque body, sight in this 
condition becomes a kind of ‘ anticipatory touch.’ The adjust- 
ment continues ; a slight bulging out of the epidermis over the 
pigment granules supervenes. A lens is incipient, and through 
the operation of infinite adjustments, at length reaches the 
perfection that it displays in the hawk and eagle.” (i) 
There you have it accounted for in all stages of its development. 
It is possibly true, but I ask, is there no mystery there? (k) You ask 
for the grounds on which such an explanation is based,—whether 
any of these developments have been traced in any one instance. 
Well no; never; but then you see it is so likely to have been the 
case. You may see the different stages in the eyes of different 
classes of animals; whence it is concluded that al/ eyes passed 
through such stages (as in fact they are found to do in the embryo 
of some creatures) until they reached the condition in which we 
possess them. They are even now we are told very imperfect. 
Professor Helmholtz speaking of the eye declares, ‘‘ It is not too 
much to say that if an optician wanted to sell me an instrument 
which had all these defects, I should think myself justified in blam- 
ing his carelessness in the strongest terms and giving him back the 
instrument.”” And yet it was the Professor’s imperfect eye with 
which he discovered its own imperfections. 
e 
THE ETHER. 
I come now to what I fearlessly assert to be the crowning 
mystery in science; to some of the most astounding facts, if facts 
they be, presented for our acceptance :—those connected with that 
subtle, all pervading fluid, and “‘inter-stellar medium,’ known as the 
Eruer. It is what we may call the atmosphere of infinite space, a 
fluid refined and rarified beyond all conception. Just as the air 
fills every crevice, corner, and cranny on the surface, and in the 
crust of our globe, and extends from it some two or three hundred 
miles out into space, so does this hypothetical fluid occupy the sub- 
stance of everything, gaseous, liquid, or solid; extending between 
planet and sun, system and system, nebula and comet, throughout 
all creation. It stretches itself 
“From star to star 
From World to luminous World as far 
As the universe spreads its flaming wall,” 
So refined, so subtle, that unlike atmospheric air it interpenetrates 
all substances, even hard as the granite rocks filling up all the 
: (i) Tyndall’s Belfast Address, p. 48. 
(k) “Well let us suppose that this is so, as I, for my part have no difficulty in 
believing. And pray, how does it tell against the Divine induction? * * * Surely 
this is a more reasonable hypothesis than that which explains so marvellous a 
development by chance or blind necessity,” Lilly, 19th Century, August, 1888. 
