496 OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 



was to issue in solar and stellar systems, and all that 

 they involve. Did that formless fog contain potentially 

 the sadness with which I regarded the Matterhorn ? Did 

 the thought which thus ran back through the ages sim- 

 ply return to its primeval home ? If so, had we not bet- 

 ter 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? Are 

 they healthy? Ought they not to be quenched by a 

 life of action? Healthy or unhealthy, can we quench 

 them? And 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 imbecility of mind, even at these 

 ponderings, and ask myself is there no being or thing 

 in the universe that knows more about these matters 

 than I do; what is my answer? Does antagonism to 

 theology stand with none of us in the place of a religion ? 

 Supposing our theologic schemes of creation, con- 

 demnation, and redemption to be dissipated; and the 

 warmth of denial, which as a motive force can match 

 the warmth of affirmation, dissipated at the same time ; 

 would the undeflected mind return to the meridian of 

 absolute neutrality as regards these ultra-physical ques- 

 tions? Is such a position one of stable equilibrium? 

 The channels of thought being already formed, such 

 are the questions without replies which could run 

 through the mind during a ten minutes' halt upon the 

 weathered spine of the Matterhorn. 



We shook the rope away from us, and went rapidly 

 down the rocks. The day was well advanced when we 



