ch. vii.] SOURCES OF TERRESTRIAL ENERGY. 417 



distance as well as by their dogs and guns ; that all this 

 multiform energy is nothing but metamorphosed solar radi- 

 ance, and that all these various objects, giving life and cheer- 

 fulness to the landscape, 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 Prof. Tyndall, that the grandest conceptions of 

 Dante and Milton 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 some- 

 thing deeper than poetry. In the sense of illimitable vast- 

 ness with which we are oppressed and saddened as we strive 

 to follow out in thought the eternal metamorphosis, we may 

 recognize the modern phase of the feeling which led the 

 ancient to fall upon his knees, and adore — after his own 

 crude, symbolic fashion — the invisible Power whereof the 

 infinite web of phenomena is but the visible garment. 



