SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. 89 



to terrestrial, if not to human, investigation. Two- 

 thirds of the rays emitted by the sun fail to arouse the 

 sense of vision. The rays exist, but the visual organ 

 requisite for their translation into light does not exist. 

 And so from this region of darkness and mystery which 

 surrounds us, rays may now be darting, which require 

 but the development of the proper intellectual organs 

 to translate them into knowledge as far surpassing 

 ours, as ours surpasses that of the wallowing reptiles 

 which once held possession of this planet. Meanwhile 

 the mystery is not without its uses. It certainly may 

 be made a power in the human soul ; but it is a power 

 which has feeling, not knowledge, for its base. It may 

 be, will be, and I hope is turned to account, both in 

 steadying and strengthening the intellect, and in 

 rescuing man from that littleness to which, in the 

 struggle for existence, or for precedence in the world, 

 he is continually prone. 



Musings on the Matterhorn, July 27, 1868. 



Hacked and hurt by time, the aspect of the moun- 

 tain from its higher crags saddened me. Hitherto the 

 impression it made was that of savage strength ; here 

 we had inexorable decay. But this notion of decay 

 implied a reference to a period when the Matterhorn 

 was in the full strength of mountainhood. Thought 

 naturally ran back to its remoter origin and sculpture. 

 Nor did thought halt there, but wandered on through 

 molten worlds to that nebulous haze which philosophers 

 have regarded, and with good reason, as the proximate 

 source of all material things. I tried to look at this 

 universal cloud, containing within itself the prediction 



