CIVILIZATION. 117 



will, it seeks to penetnite those uwful secrets which we 

 liave been Ciirrviug about Avith us in our own bodies, 

 without daring to exj^lore tlicin. Its realm extends 

 even to higher spheres than tliis. It takes to itself the 

 name of i)hilosophy, and hovers aloft in the regions of 

 the soul, and above the soul it studies the ideas which 

 enlighten it. îind, far above the ideas, (Jod who gives 

 them light. Yes I to start from the atom, to go mount- 

 ing upward, Ijy the blood, by the ideas, by God himself, 

 up to the very topmost height of things, never pausing 

 until, like the dazed eagle, it hangs poised with eye 

 lixed u})on the sun — this is the career of science I 

 All! 1 could lift up a lamentation that should not 

 be comforted, were humanity to be bereft of these 

 sublime audacities, of the ravishment of these prolific 



And yet this is not all Science, as I have just hinted, 

 is a prolific mother. She cannot remain cloistered in 

 the sanctuary of contemplation, like a virgin in her 

 calm and luminous beauty. She comes back into the 

 sphere of material activity ; she is wedded to productive 

 toil, and they are the parents of power and riches. Into 

 the hands of the laborer from the plough she puts im- 

 plements and methods that are akin to the miraculous, 

 and bids him Go, subdue the world, and transform it. 

 And — as in these Titanic wars that are led by genius 

 and waited on by fortune, each day is marked by some 

 resplendent victory — so discovery succeeds discovery, 

 each surpassing that which went before, and science 

 applied by industry impels society from triumph on to 

 triumph, toward a future which they do but just dimly 

 descry, and the prospect of which at once enraptures 

 and dismays. 



And then over the stalwart and naked shoulders of 



