PERCEIVING & PERCEIVED NATURES 143 



work is rough, the surfaces are uneven, yet is there un- 

 mistakable evidence that he has worked with intelligence. 

 Great is the difference between the signs of his hands and 

 those which genius imprints. But the difference is infini- 

 tesimal compared with that between the most brilliant 

 triumphs of human art and those which flame out on us in 

 the operations of perception, in its magnificent power of 

 dealing with the multitudes of motions that come to it in 

 a second from hills, and plains, and woods, and fields, and 

 streams. Is it then to be said that no art is needed for the 

 art supreme, for triumphs which a whole world of genius 

 could not produce in an eternity? Nay, assuredly, nay. 

 These phenomena are not meaningless. They mean in- 

 tensely. At a glance order is seen sufficient to transport and 

 raise to the whitest heat of admiration. And as the eyes of 

 the imagination gaze, and of the understanding open, a 

 hand breaks into view brilliant as the sun at noonday, 

 yea as the light of seven days, a hand that, when seen, 

 writes the name of God on the brain and heart for ever. 

 They are not silent. They speak. They sing. They are 

 as a chorus of myriads. They articulate, and name the 

 name that is above every name with a clearness and force 

 and awfulness as of that voice from Sinai that made 

 Israel remove and stand afar off. 



In like manner our perception of sounds might have 

 been narrow and poor, but instead our perceptive nature 

 can perceive, and take over, and transform the motions 

 created by a grand instrument and orchestra, the multi- 

 farious sounds of a multitude making holiday, and the 

 mighty volume of the thunder's and ocean's roll. The 

 senses of smell and taste might have been capable of 

 nothing more than a touch at a point. Both, however, 

 are on a liberal scale. Thus in the case of all the senses 

 the amount and fineness of adjustment between the per- 



