SOURCES OF TERRESTRIAL ENERGY 



well as by their dogs and guns, — that all this 

 multiform energy is nothing but metamor- 

 phosed solar radiance, and that all these various 

 objects, giving life and cheerfulness to the land- 

 scape, have been built up into their cognizable 

 forms by the agency of sunbeams such as those 

 by which the scene is now rendered visible. We 

 may well declare, with Professor Tyndall, that 

 the grandest conceptions of Dante and JMilton 

 are dwarfed in comparison with the truths which 

 science discloses. But it seems to me that we 

 may go farther than this, and say that we have 

 here reached something deeper than poetry. In 

 the sense of illimitable vastness with which we 

 are oppressed and saddened as we strive to fol- 

 low out in thought the eternal metamorphosis, 

 we may recognize the modern phase of the feel- 

 ing which led the ancient to fall upon his knees 

 and adore — after his own crude, symbolic 

 fashion — the invisible Power whereof the infi- 

 nite web of phenomena is but the visible gar- 

 ment. 



341 



