ON ORGANIC CREATION. 187 



gifted race, who felt the mysterious truth they were yet 

 unable to describe. Pheaton and Apollo are only other 

 foreshadowings of the creative energies which dwell in 

 the glorious centre of our universe. The poetry of the 

 Hellenic people ascended above the littlenesses of merely 

 human action, and sought to interpret the great truths 

 of creation. Reflective, they could not but see that 

 some mysterious powers were at work around them; 

 imaginative, they gave to fine idealisations the govern- 

 ment of those inexplicable phenomena. Modern science 

 has shown what vastly important offices the solar rays 

 execute, and that the principles discovered in a sunbeam 

 are indeed the exciters of organic life, and the disposers . 

 of inorganic form. 



It must not be forgotten that we have already 

 alluded to a speculation which supposes this actinic in- 

 fluence to be diffused through all nature, to be indeed 

 the element to which chemical force in all its forms is to 

 be referred, and that it is merely excited by the solar 

 rays. This hypothesis receives some support from the 

 very peculiar manner in which chemical action once set 

 up is carried on, independent of all extraneous excite- 

 ment, after the first disturbance has been produced. If 

 any of the salts of gold are exposed in connection with 

 organic matter, as on paper, to sunshine for a moment, 

 an action is begun, which goes on unceasingly in the 

 dark, until the gold is reduced to its most simple state.* 



* This peculiar continuance of an effect lias frequently been 

 observed in many of the photographic processes. In a note to a 

 memoir On certain improvements in Photographic processes, 

 Sir John Herschel thus refers to this property : " The excitement 

 is produced on such paper by the ordinary moisture of the atmos- 

 phere, and goes on slowly \\orking its effect in the dark, apparently 

 without other limit than is afforded by the supply of ingredients 

 present. In the case of silver it ultimately produces a perfect 

 silvering of all the sunned portions. Very singular and beautiful 

 photographs, having much resemblance to Daguerreotype pictures, 

 are thus produced ; the negative character changing by keeping, 



