Par] AND SYMBOLS. 263 



Paroxysmal Methods. 



Nature has her paroxysms. Sir Roderick Murchison affirms 

 that by no possible extension of gradual and insensible causes 

 could huge masses of Tertiary rocks have been so thrown over 

 as to pass under the older rocks of the Alps, out of which they 

 were formed. That operation, he says, must have been par- 

 oxysmal, and no slow process could have accomplished it. The 

 crust and outline of the earth are, in short, full of evidences 

 that many of the ruptures and overthrows of the strata, as well 

 as great denudations, could not even in millions of years have 

 been produced by agencies like those of our times. si. 



Partisan Colours. 



The political colour is determined by the political light in 

 which the elector has been reared. The man who has had to 

 grub in ignorance must wear a hue very different from that of 

 his opponent who has lived in the bright light of educated 

 thought. The narrow cells of ecclesiastical bigotry prevent 

 their occupant from acquiring the ruddy colour of the un- 

 imprisoned truth-seeker. But it is not only amongst voters at 

 election times that we observe the effect of light in settling the 

 question of colour amongst active workers. We know that 

 certain animals whose natural hue is white, if bred and brought 

 up in darkness, become completely altered in texture and colour. 

 The cockroach in its normal state is intensely black. If this 

 insect be taken at an early stage of its existence, and carefully 

 reared in darkness, instead of assuming an inky hue when it 

 arrives at full growth, it becomes nearly white. The larvae of 

 most insects that burrow in the cavities of the earth, of plants, 

 or of animals, are white from the same cause. When confined 

 under glasses that admit the light, they exchange their white- 

 ness for a brownish hue. The influence of solar light and of 

 moral light explains many mysteries amongst men and maggots. 



I. L. 



