66 THE CREATION OF MATTER 



falling on them, as to reflect irregularly a glowing green. 

 The heath of the mountains has in its lovely bells mole- 

 cules which take up so many kinds of motions of the 

 waving ether and reject others, as to be able to clothe 

 the hills with purple. The flowers of the garden and the 

 field have their atoms so ordered as to give forth all 

 the colours of the rainbow. The same flowers glow and 

 beam with several hues. 



The scattering of rays is all-important in the economy 

 of nature. It is by it that objects are seen. Of the 

 beams of light falling on a blade of grass, those which 

 the atoms cannot take up are sent out in every direction 

 in which a straight line can be drawn from the surface. 

 The last points of the ether strike against the constituent 

 molecules in the grass and flowers, and give up those 

 energies which these can receive, and recoil with those 

 which they cannot receive, and generating motions of the 

 same kind in every finest line that proceedeth from them 

 in any direction. How inexpressible is the delicacy of the 

 work thus performed ! How great is the amount of it ! 



No great and extensive work can be accomplished 

 by haphazard means. To obtain a powerful machine, a 

 mighty engine, requires long, deep, and earnest thought. 

 The most important machines of modern times have not 

 been perfected at a stroke. They have been at first 

 clumsy and complicated. They have worked awkwardly, 

 and have needed many arrangements and corrections to 

 render them serviceable. The perfection of an instru- 

 ment lies in simplicity, in adaptation for work, in power 

 of smooth and effective action. It is when great prin- 

 ciples are brought into play, when mechanism in har- 

 mony with them is constructed, that an end sought is 

 best reached, that an object aimed at is most successfully 

 accomplished. It is also true that no great work can be 



