RET. JAMES MARTINEAU AND BELFAST ADDRESS. 237 



and which he so justly scorns when it indulges in loose 

 practices. 



Compounding, then, the northward motion of the 

 vapour with the earth's axial rotation, we track our 

 fugitive through the higher atmospheric regions, 

 obliquely across the Atlantic Ocean to Western Europe, 

 and on to our familiar Alps. Here another wonderful 

 metamorphosis occurs. Floating on the cold calm air, 

 and in presence of the cold firmament, the vapour 

 condenses, not only to particles of water, but to 

 particles of crystalline water. These coalesce to stars 

 of snow, which fall upon the mountains in forms so 

 exquisite that, when first seen, they never fail to excite 

 rapture. As to beauty, indeed, they put the work of 

 the lapidary to shame, while as to accuracy they render 

 concrete the abstractions of the geometer. Are these 

 crystals ' matter ' ? Without presuming to dogmatise, 

 I answer for myself in the affirmative. 



Still, a formative power has obviously here come 

 into play which did not manifest itself in either the 

 liquid or the vapour. The question now is, Was not 

 the power ' potential ' in both of them, requiring only 

 the proper conditions of temperature to bring it into 

 action ? Again I answer for myself in the affirmative. 

 I am, however, quite willing to discuss with Mr. 

 Martineau the alternative hypothesis, that an impon- 

 derable formative soul unites itself with the substance 

 after its escape from the liquid state. If he should 

 espouse this hypothesis, then I should demand of him 

 an immediate exercise of that Vorstellungs-fahigkeit, 

 with which, in my efforts to think clearly, I can never 

 dispense. I should ask, At what moment did the soul 

 come in ? Did it enter at once or by degrees ; perfect 

 from the first, or growing and perfecting itself con- 

 temporaneously with its own handiwork? J should 



