90 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



proximate source of all material things. I tried to 

 look at this universal cloud, containing within itself 

 the prediction 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 poten- 

 tially the sadness with which I regarded the Matter- 

 horn ? Did the thought which now ran hack 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 my self, 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 neu- 

 trality as regards these ultra-physical questions? Is 

 such a position one of stable equilibrium? The chan- 

 nels 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. 



