236 FKAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



his contempt for the picturesque interpretation of na- 

 ture, if accuracy of vision be thereby impaired. But 

 the term Vorstellungs-fahigkeit, as used by me, means 

 the power of definite mental presentation, of attaching 

 to words the corresponding objects of thought, and of 

 seeing these in their proper relations, without the in- 

 terior haze and soft penumbral borders which the theo- 

 logian loves. To this mode of ' interpreting nature ' 

 I shall to the best of my ability now adhere. 



Neither of us, I trust, will be afraid or ashamed to 

 begin at the alphabet of this question. Our first effort 

 must be to understand each other, and this mutual 

 understanding can only be ensured by beginning low 

 down. 'Physically speaking, however, we heed not go 

 below the sea-level. Let us then travel in company 

 to the Caribbean Sea, and halt upon the heated water. 

 What is that sea, and what is the sun that heats it? 

 Answering for myself, I say that they are both matter. 

 I fill a glass with the sea-water and expose it on the 

 deck of the vessel; after some time the liquid has all 

 disappeared, and left a solid residue of salt in the glass 

 behind. We have mobility, invisibility apparent an- 

 nihilation. In virtue of 



The glad and secret aid 

 The sun unto the ocean paid, 



the water has taken to itself wings and flown off as 

 vapour. From the whole surface of the Caribbean Sea 

 such vapour is rising: and now we must follow it not 

 upon our legs, however, nor in a ship, nor even in a 

 balloon, but by the mind's eye in other words, by that 

 power of Vorstellung which Mr. Martineau knows so 

 well, and which he so justly scorns when it indulges 

 in loose practices. 



Compounding, then, the northward motion of the 



