CHAPTER IX. 

 THE THREE BARRIERS. 



+- 



"So long as you have that fire of the heart 

 within you, and know the reality of it," says 

 Mr. Ruskin, "you need be under no alarm as 

 to the possibility of its chemical or mechanical 

 analysis. The philosophers are very humorous 

 in their ecstasy of hope about it ; but the real 

 interest of their discoveries in this direction is 

 very small to human-kind." 1 And the same 

 may be said of the discoveries themselves. 

 Their actual amount, not less than their real 

 interest, is " very small." So small indeed, that 

 " their ecstasy about it " though merely an 

 " ecstasy of hope " is a " very humorous " spec- 

 tacle. He who doubts this nas not read Mr. 

 Darwin. 



" It requires a long succession of ages to 

 adapt an organism to some new and peculiar 

 form of life, as, for instance, to fly through the 



1 " The Queen of the Air." London, 1869, p. 70. 



