416 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. II 



At present we have only to regard them as furnishiug con- 

 clusive evidence that the phenomena which are subjectively 

 known as changes in consciousness, are objectively corre- 

 lated with molecular motions of nerve-matter which are 

 seen, in an ultimate analysis, to be highly differentiated 

 forms of solar radiance. Waves of this radiance, speeding 

 earthward from the sun at the rate of more than five hundred 

 trillions per second, impart their motor energy to the atoms 

 which vibrate in unison in the compound molecules of the 

 growing grass. Cattle, browsing on this grass, and inte- 

 grating portions of it with their tissues, rearrange its mole- 

 cules in more complex clusters, in which the tremendous 

 chemical energy of heat-saturated nitrogen is held in equili- 

 brium by the aid of these metamorphosed sunbeams. Man, 

 assimilating the nitrogenous tissues of the cow, builds up 

 these clusters of molecules, with their stores of sun-given 

 and sun-restrained energy, into the wondrously complex 

 elements of white and grey nerve-tissue, which incessantly 

 liberating energy in decomposition, mysteriously enable 

 him to trace and describe a portion of the astonishing 

 metamorphosis. 



When one takes a country ramble on a pleasant summer's 

 day, one may fitly ponder upon the wondrous significance of 

 this law of the transformation of energy. It is wondrous to 

 reflect that all the energy stored up in the timbers of the 

 fences and farmhouses which we pass, as well as in the grind- 

 stone and the axe lying beside it, and in the iron axles and 

 heavy tires of the cart which stands tipped by the roadside ; 

 all the energy from moment to moment given out by the 

 roaring cascade and the busy wheel that rumbles at its foot, 

 by the undulating stalks of corn in the field and the swaying 

 branches in the forest beyond, by the birds that sing in the 

 tree-tops and the butterflies to which they anon give chase 

 by the cow standing in the brook and the water which bathes 

 her lazy feet, by the sportsmen who pass shouting in the 



