72 PHENOMENA OF THE SEASONS. 



the land. The work of life is now at its maximum, and 

 every energy is quickened throughout the organic 

 creation. The laws of nature are arranged on the 

 principle of antagonistic forces, the constant struggle to 

 maintain them in equilibrium constituting the sensible 

 phenomena of existence. Heat and light, with chemical 

 power and electricity, have been quickening the un- 

 known principle of life, until it has become exhausted 

 in the production of new parts in the strange pheno- 

 menon of growth the formation of organized matter 

 from the inorganic stores of creation. 



The autumn, with its tempered sunlight, comes, but in 

 the solar radiance we discover new powers, and under 

 the influence of these the flower and the fruit have 

 birth. The store of a -new life is centered in the seed, 

 and though the leaf falls, and the flower fades, a new set 

 of organisms are produced, by which the continuance of 

 the species is secured. 



Let any man examine himself as the seasons change, 

 and he will soon be convinced that every alternation of 

 ight and darkness, of heat and its absence, produces new 

 sets of influences equally on the mind and on the body, 

 showing the entire dependence of the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms upon those causes which appear to 

 flow from the centre of our planetary system. 



The phenomena which connect themselves with the 

 changes of the seasons cannot fail to convince the most 

 superficial thinker that there is an intimate connection 

 between the sun and the earth which deserves our close 

 attention. 



Indeed, if we examine the most ancient of histories, 

 we find one great fact at the base of all their philoso- 

 phies. Moses connects darkness with a void and formless 

 earth, and light with the creation of harmony and life. 

 Menis sings of a fearful world by ' ' many formed dark- 

 ness encircled," and links the idea of a " life-breathing- 



