616 THE MOUNTAIN. 



What has the Understanding, in its efforts to solve the 

 mystery of creation, and climb the ladder between the finite 

 and infinite, done, but tramp in ceaseless iteration upon the 

 steps of the majestic treadmill of a system of grand but iden- 

 tical propositions? For more than two thousand years it 

 appears upon the record, that the mind of man has been 

 after the molecule of matter ; and although the last step has 

 not been taken, the last question answered,* or the last analy- 

 sis executed, still, what wondrous strides have been made on 

 the trail of the atom, from Leucippus to Malpighi and Dai- 

 ton, and from Democritus to Leuwenhceck, Hook, Grew, 

 Ehrenberg, Schawn, Kutzing, and Schleiden, what a world 

 has sprung into existence I Had not that ancient philoso- 

 pher, (Democritus,) who said that "he preferred the dis- 

 covery of a true cause to the possession of the kingdom of 

 Persia," a worthy successor and fruit of the centuries, in the 

 genius of the youthful Rectorf of Kendal school, (Dalton,) 

 who preferred the unambitious labor of teaching mathematics 

 at Manchester, and the discovery of the atomic theory of 

 chemistry, to the throne possibly of a bishopric of England. 



Gifted and profound souls herald and announce gifted 

 and profound souls, through the desert wastes of long hun- 

 dreds of years, with an understanding that seems the identity 

 of inspiration ; and although there is a vast difference between 

 the story of the primeval atom of the ancient philosophers 

 and the modern atom of chemistry, or the doctrine of definite 



* "The origin of the cell is by no means yet quite clearly made 

 out; only this much is certain, that a peculiar little body appertain- 

 ing to the primordial utricle, and called the cell-nucleus, plays a very 

 important part in it." Structure of Plants. M. J. SCHLEIDEN, Prof, 

 of Botany to the University of Jena. 



f Dalton succeeded to the Kectorship of a school at Kendal in 

 his nineteenth year, and, after remaining there for eight years, re- 

 tired to Manchester, and preferred leading the "unobtrusive life of 

 a scientific member of the Society of Friends," and advancing the 

 world by one of the most splendid discoveries of science, to advanc- 

 ing himself in a worldly point of view, although a gold medal by the 

 Royal Society and a statue by Chantrey came at last. 



