90 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



of all that has since occurred ; I tried to imagine it as 

 the seat of those forces whose action was to issue in 

 solar and stellar systems, and all that they involve. 

 Did that formless fog contain potentially the sadness 

 with which I regarded the Matterhorn ? Did the 

 thought which now ran back to it simply return to its 

 primeval home ? If so, had we not better recast our 

 definitions of matter and force ; for, if life and thought 

 be the very flower of both, any definition which omits 

 life and thought must be inadequate, if not untrue. 

 Are questions like these warranted ? Why not ? If 

 the final goal of man has not been yet attained ; if his 

 development has not been yet arrested, who can say 

 that such yearnings and questionings are not necessary 

 to the opening of a finer vision, to the budding and the 

 growth of diviner powers ? When I look at the heavens 

 and the earth, at my own body, at my strength and 

 weakness, even at these ponderings, and ask myself, Is 

 there no being or thing in the universe that knows 

 more about these matters than I do ; what is my 

 answer? Supposing our theologic schemes of creation, 

 condemnation, and redemption to be dissipated ; and 

 the warmth of denial which they excite, and which, as 

 a motive force, can match the warmth of affirmation, 

 dissipated at the same time ; would the undeflected 

 human mind return to the meridian of absolute neutrality 

 as regards these ultra-physical questions? Is such a 

 position one of stable equilibrium ? The channels of 

 thought being already formed, such are the questions, 

 without replies, which could run athwart consciousness 

 during a ten minutes' halt upon the weathered crest of 

 the Matterhorn. 



