ON THE IMAGINATION 87 



hands of every climber in the higher and more inaccessible 

 regions of knowledge. Here it has supplied incentive to 

 continue the endeavour to scale, and to penetrate when 

 foothold was being lost and the darkness of the unknown 

 was thickening around the indefatigable explorer, and has 

 been to him to some extent its own recompense when 

 success has not been achieved, in this last respect sharing 

 with "virtue" the distinction of repaying itself, and con- 

 stituting " its own reward." 



The astronomer, from lowly imaginings and meagre 

 beginnings in exact knowledge, and minus the helps 

 latterly afforded by inventive genius, has discovered in 

 otherwise inaccessible and almost transcendental regions 

 the existence of law and order and the procession of 

 worlds beyond the reach of immediate observation, extend- 

 ing into regions only dimly realisable, even by the 

 chastened and experienced imagination, but, nevertheless, 

 quite allowable as an exercise of scientific faith on the 

 lines of infinite continuity and extension. 



Here, " where eye has not seen nor ear heard," 

 imagination floats on wings sustainable in the medium 

 of faith, with a feeling of as complete realisation as when 

 the telescope is made to survey the features of the moon's 

 face and scan its geographical complexion, and when, 

 allying himself with the physicist and the chemist, he 

 turns his attention to the distribution of u the elements " 

 in the structure and behaviour of the heavenly bodies, 

 and realises that, in the great astral sphere or common- 

 wealth, law and order exist of a character far transcending 

 in the harmony and exactitude of their working any thing 

 or system on the face of this earth or amongst the most 

 civilised family of man. 



In like manner the men of " light and leading com- 

 port themselves in every branch of human knowledge and 

 along every path of research the searchers after truth in 

 every department of knowledge and the exponents of 

 every science which the course of events has brought into 

 existence, therefore, stand, or should stand, " shoulder to 

 shoulder " in their march towards the common goal of 

 truth, scouting independently, or joining in proper battle 

 array against the common forces of the "great unknown. 



