ALL THINGS MUTABLE. 2£7 



plished their part in the organisation to which they 

 had accrued, they are rejected, and their place taken 

 by others. At a given moment they are, so to say, 

 shunted off the track they had followed, and moved 

 on a line to contract new alliances. To the being 

 with whose existence they were identified succeeds 

 another, totally different ; instead of the concentra- 

 tion of force, there reigns for awhile anarchy ; and 

 anarchy is followed by the rise of fresh organisations, 

 destined in their turn to disappear. There is no 

 organised being that is immutable, any more than a 

 simple atom that is so. 



In like manner we learn from history that whole 

 peoples, or national individualities, are born, grow, 

 and die, like individual men, to be succeeded by 

 others. Nay, even the species is no exception to the 

 law of everlasting change. 



But at least, you will say, the solid rock is allowed 

 to repose in quiet, and enjoy the privilege of im- 

 mutability ? No ; its surface is exposed to the 

 action of all manner of exterior influences, and eve 

 every variation of temperature profoundly affects 

 that apparently unchangeable mass. The truth is, 

 our view of things is a very limited one. The in- 

 finitely great escapes us as well as the infinitely 

 little. ]^>en a wheel moving with great rapidity 

 seems as if it did not move. Again, an extremely 



