Att] AND SYMBOLS. 19 



up, and meets the grin and glare of the fiendish giant, who, 

 watching his opportunity, had suddenly put down his immense 

 hind-hand, caught the wretch by the neck with resistless power, 

 and dropped him only when he ceased to struggle. We make 

 a great boast at the present time about our athletics. Mr. 

 Wilkie Collins, in his masterly preface to " Man and Wife," 

 expatiates upon the disastrous effect which has been produced 

 upon society by " the recent unbridled development of physical 

 cultivation in England," and clearly proves the intimate con- 

 nection which exists between that and the " recent spread of 

 grossness and brutality among certain classes of the English 

 population." Yet there are thousands of gentlemen who almost 

 venerate one of their number who may happen to be an athlete. 

 They appear to consider that the qualities which make up the 

 character are really noble. Let them study the gorilla, the ape 

 which most resembles man, and then reflect that when they 

 have done their utmost to train for the championship of the 

 world, that awful brute is their superior. RO. 



The World Mirrored in an Atom. 



There are myriads of atoms existing in a single drop of water, 

 recreating and executing all their functions and evolutions with 

 as much rapidity and apparent facility as if the range afforded 

 to them was as boundless as the ocean. He who has attentively 

 watched the motions of these living atoms in a single drop of 

 water, as displayed by the oxyhydrogen microscope, must feel 

 impressed with the conviction that their motions are voluntary, 

 and that their lives, like that of man, exhibit a mingled scene 

 of pain and of enjoyment. Their extreme minuteness, as judged 

 of by our feeble senses, does not prevent them from. having a 

 multiplicity of organs for their use, probably as perfect as in 

 much larger animals. s. 



Reciprocal Attraction. 



Reciprocal attraction is a principle running throughout the , 

 world. Its result among men is friendship. Its consequence 

 in matter is adhesion. If two leaden bullets are cut with a I 

 penknife so as to form two equal and brightly polished surfaces,/ 



