264 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



the eye alone — with its lens, and its humors, and its mi- 

 raculous retina behind. Consider the ear with its tym- 

 panum, cochlea, and Corti's organ — an instrument of three 

 thousand strings, built adjacent to the brain, and employed 

 by it to sift, separate, and interpret, antecedent to all con- 

 sciousness, the sonorous tremors of the external world. 

 All this has been accomplished, not only without man's 

 contrivance, but without his knowledge, the secret of his 

 own organization having been withheld from him since 

 his birth in the immeasurable past, until these latter days. 

 Matter I define as that mysterious thing by which all this 

 is accomplished. How it came to have this power is a 

 question on which I never ventured an opinion. If, then, 

 Matter starts as "a beggar," it is, in my view, because the 

 Jacobs of theology have deprived it of its birthright. Mr. 

 Marti neau need fear no disenchantment. Theories of evo- 

 lution go but a short way toward the explanation of this 

 mystery; the Ages, let us hope, will at length give us 

 a Poet competent to deal with it aright. 



There are men, and they include among them some of 

 the best of the race of man, upon whose minds this mys- 

 tery falls without producing either warmth or color. The 

 *'dry light" of the intellect suffices for them, and they 

 live their noble lives untouched by a desire to give the 

 mystery shape or expression. There are, on the other 

 hand, men whose minds are warmed and colored by its 

 presence, and who, under its stimulus, attain to moral 

 heights which have never been overtopped. Different 

 spiritual climates are necessary for the healthy existence 

 of these two classes of men; and different climates must 

 be accorded them. The history of humanity, however, 

 proves the experience of the second class to illustrate the 



