FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 239 



To-day, our notions are clearer, but we 

 are met by precisely the same problem, 

 and I am inclined to think that we shall 

 be so met forever. We no longer think 

 of the elephant and the tortoise, but of the 

 globe swinging in ether, with innumerable 

 other globes, bound together and kept 

 apart by the attraction of gravitation and 

 certain specified motions. But, as Lord 

 Salisbury says, what is the ether ? and 

 also what is gravitation, and what is be 

 yond the limits of the myriad orbs ? 



Did it ever occur to you that the ultimate 

 things, the only things which are impregna 

 ble facts, the things that must be, are for the 

 human mind, unthinkable, or inconceivable, 

 except as a form of words ? It has been 

 customary to criticise severely the attitude 

 of mind of him who says, &quot;I believe, be 

 cause it is impossible,&quot; and I wholly agree 

 with the ordinary application of this criti 

 cism. And yet, after all, the greatest things, 

 the outlying and unalterable facts, which are 

 not affected by hypothesis, and which we 

 are bound to accept, are impossible, in our 

 thought. Take, for example, two of the most 

 important, time and space. There are, so 

 far as I can conceive, but two alternatives 

 in regard to each of these. Either there 



