Lig] AND SYMBOLS. 201 



they often fast several days at a time, and remain immured in 

 their huts like hybernatiug animals ; but at length, driven by 

 famine and by want of oil, they go forth upon the ice in search 

 of the seals which come up to breathe. When they have killed 

 one they regale themselves upon it until only the bones remain, 

 after which they endure a new period of privation. Thus they 

 live from day to day, in continual alternations of gluttony 

 and abstinence ; all idea of providing for the future is as com- 

 pletely out of their heads as it is out of many of those in our 

 own land who have had greater advantages and more oppor- 

 tunities of knowing right. D. 



Instinctive Love of Light. 



A strong tendency is exhibited by certain plants to follow 

 the light from an apparently instinctive consciousness of its 

 being necessary, if not to their existence, at least for their well- 

 being. This phenomenon is beautifully shown by many facts, 

 of which one will serve as an example. One spring a potato 

 was left behind in a cellar where some tools had been kept during 

 the winter, and which had only a small aperture at the upper part 

 of one of its sides. The potato which lay in the opposite corner 

 shot out a runner which first ran twenty feet along the ground, 

 and crept up along the wall, and so through the opening by which 

 light was admitted. The Chrysanthemum Peruvianum turns con- 

 tinually towards the sun, and is said to cover itself with dewy 

 clouds which cool and refresh the flower during the most violent 

 heat of the day. Some men have an instinctive love of higher 

 light. In order to obtain the truth they perform prodigies of 

 skill and endurance. Some of our most noble characters have 

 emerged into positions of conspicuous usefulness by following 

 their instinctive love of light, which has guided them out of 

 darkness, privation, and obscurity. I. L. 



All Light is Regulated to our Capacity. 



We see objects by reflected light ; in other words, the object 

 must first be illuminated, and then it must reflect a certain 

 amount of this light into our eyes. But as the entrance of too 



