PERCEIVING & PERCEIVED NATURES 125 



and sublimest heights, mantled in green, purple, and 

 white. Valleys and plains are clad in verdure many 

 tinted, are clothed with corn, are watered in blue and 

 silver and gold. Living forms lie or walk, run or fly. 

 Great is the extent of view, multitudinous the objects, 

 which the eye from a mountain top can command. By 

 the ear we become acquainted with a wealth of sound. 

 Every object struck yields its own variety. Every living 

 creature has its own cry or note. Beautiful, noble, and 

 sometimes thrilling are the tones of the human voice in 

 speech and song. Entrancing are the great compositions 

 which musical instruments are made to render. By day 

 the lark captivates the listening ear. The song of the 

 nightingale is by night seasoned to its right praise and 

 true perfection. Sweetly smell the rose and the briar, 

 flowers many, shrubs many. Festal to the taste are 

 fruits, and foods without number. 



When the things perceived are investigated by the 

 intellect, many facts and laws are learned regarding 

 them. In every perception of the objects of the exter- 

 nal world, there is the action of the material elements, 

 of the bodily organs, which form the machinery of com- 

 munication, and of the perceiving nature. In the case 

 of the two former it consists in forms of motion. Light 

 and colour phenomena have their origin in the sun. 

 Heat of tremendous intensity, molecular motions, com- 

 pared with which whirlwinds are calmness, agitate a great 

 ether sea, dash it against solid particles in the flames, 

 and generate light vibrations. These are transverse, and 

 at every point vary in numbers from under four hundred 

 billions to nearly eight hundred billions per second. 

 According to the numbers of the motions in the mole- 

 cules which they strike on the earth are the numbers 

 of vibrations forwarded from them to the eye, and the 



