2 GKAYITATION. 



and if we find by the end of this lecture, that 

 we may be justified in continuing them, think- 

 ing that next week our power shall be greater, 

 why then, with submission to you, we will 

 take such course as you may think fit, either 

 to go on or discontinue them : and although I 

 now feel much weakened by the pressure of 

 illness (a mere cold) upon me, both in facility 

 of expression and clearness of thought, I shall 

 here claim, as I always have done on these 

 occasions, the right of addressing myself to the 

 younger members of the audience, and for 

 this purpose, therefore, unfitted as it may seem 

 for an elderly infirm man to do so, I will return 

 to second childhood and become, as it were, 

 young again amongst the young. 



Let us now consider, for a little while, how 

 wonderfully we stand upon this world. Here 

 it is we are born, bred, and live, and yet we 

 view these things with an almost entire ab- 

 sence of wonder to ourselves respecting the way 

 in which all this happens. So small, indeed, is 

 our wonder, that we are never taken by sur- 

 prise; and I do think, that, to*a young person 

 of ten, fifteen, or twenty years of age, perhaps 

 the first sight of a cataract or a mountain would 



