ON THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT. 311 



not that they pass their time in clipping their own wings ; were 

 it not that, to bend their heads the better Veluti pecora ventri 

 obedientia -they check the aspiring flight of that thought which 

 would soar beyond the present ; in a word, were it not that 

 they lay a sacrilegious hand unfortunate wretches ! on that 

 which God Himself has respected in His creature Liberty ! 

 The doubt which perplexes us as to the great problem of our 

 destiny, the doubt which allows so much latitude to the 

 workings of our conscience, does it not indicate the path 

 we ought to follow? Should not men regard their freedom 

 with peculiar reverence, when the Divinity they invoke has 

 mercifully refrained from fettering it ? Creatures of a day, 

 who live as if you would never die ! the contradictions and the 

 miseries of which you so incessantly complain, are your own 

 work. Help, help yourselves, by the development of your 

 faculties, by the cultivation of your heart and mind, for herein 

 you shall see the law and the prophets. Barren lip-service is 

 nothing better than blasphemy ! 



But let us return to the ground which we tread, and where 

 our life -companions are the animals and the plants. 



The uppermost stratum of our globe undergoes the direct 

 action of the light and heat of the all-vivifying " orb of day." 

 This action, very unequal in its effects, and most important to 

 understand, has scarcely been touched as yet by scientific 

 research. Our geologists, having been more busily engaged 

 with the inside than the outside of the earth, have broached 



