142 THE CREATION OF MATTER 



number and variety of motions passing over from the 

 brain to the perceiving nature are inexpressibly, im- 

 measurably, overwhelmingly great, and yet so vast is the 

 capacity for receiving them, so perfect is its adaptation 

 for dealing with them, so regal is it in power, that, with 

 matchless ease and smoothness of working, it receives, 

 deals with, and interprets and transfigures them after 

 its fashion. Let us consider and endeavour to imagine 

 the riches of the glory of this ordered action between the 

 perceiving and perceived natures, the amount of it, the 

 fineness of it, its transcendent rapidity and perfection. 

 Here is capacity for receiving great as the sea, rapid as the 

 light, refined to its fineness, adjusted to the exquisiteness 

 of its adjustments. Here is an inflow of motions, more 

 multitudinous than the molecules of all earth's rivers, and 

 their motions. The most extensive and admired outward 

 view is surpassed by the small yet inconceivably great 

 volume of activity passing through the eye, the retina, the 

 nerve fibres and the brain, but above all by the final action 

 on the perceiving nature. Here in an instant more work 

 is done than by all the machinery of the world in days. 

 It is accomplished with sublimest ease. We open our 

 eyes and look and feel as if no force had been expended. 

 It is divine work. Beside it the "that" of Michael Angelo 

 is vanity and coarseness. In presence of phenomena of 

 such rank, how can it be said that there is nothing more to 

 be seen than the eye of science recognises, that no sound 

 is uttered save such as it hears, that these phenomena are 

 to be regarded as phenomena and nothing more. We can 

 learn nothing of whence they are. They are meaningless, 

 they are silent, or their answer to the cry, Who hath called 

 them, and set them in order, is that of the Cyclops of old, 

 Ouris, OVTIS, OVTIS No one, no one, no one! The mason 

 squares his stones and makes them fit for building. The 



