53 



As I rode through the Schwarzwald, I said to myself : That little 

 fire which glows star-like across the dark-growing moor, where the 

 sooty smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace thy lost 

 horse-shoe, is it a detached, separated speck, cutoff from the whole 

 Universe ; or indissolubly joined to the whole ? Thou fool, that 

 smithy-fire was primarily kindled at the Sun ; is fed by air that 

 circulates from before Noah's Deluge, from beyond the Dogstar ; 

 therein, with Iron Force, and Coal Force, and the far stranger Force 

 of Man, are cunning affinities and battles and victories of Force 

 brought about ; it is a little ganglion, or nervous centre, in the 

 great vital system of Immensity. Call it, if thou wilt, an uncon- 

 scious Altar, kindled on the bosom of the All .... Detached, 

 separated ! I say there is no such separation : nothing hitherto 

 was ever stranded, cast aside ; but all, were it only a withered leaf, 

 works together with all ; is borne forward on the bottomless, 

 shoreless flood of action, and lives through perpetual metamor- 

 phoses. CARLYLE . 



V. 



MATTER AND FORCE. 1 



IT is the custom of the Professors in the Eoyal School 

 of Mines in London to give courses of evening lec- 

 tures every year to working men. The lecture-room 

 holds 600 people ; and tickets to this amount are dis- 

 posed of as quickly as they can be handed to those who 

 apply for them. So desirous are the working men of 

 London to attend these lectures, that the persons who 

 fail to obtain tickets always bear a large proportion to 

 those who succeed. Indeed, if the lecture-room could 

 hold 2,000 instead of 600, I do not doubt that every one 



1 A Lecture delivered to the working men of Dundee, Sep- 

 tember 5, 1867, with additions. 



