Lect. IX.] DRY LIGHT. 217 



This, however, is what the old philosophers called 

 " dry light ;" and, as Bacon remarks, it is not comfortable 

 to most minds. The deeper things of nature are a sort 

 of manna, but the souls of some people become dried up 

 if you give them merely this celestial kind of diet ; so 

 that they murmur, and say, "We remember the fish 

 which we did eat in Egypt, freely ; the cucumbers, and 

 the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the 

 garlic." 



And yet this ignorance of nature is set up as a dead 

 wall against all progress of thought ; for these people are 

 " most ignorant of what they're most assured," certain 

 that they know all about their " glassy essence ;" and, 

 although as blind as moles, they are the enemies of all 

 who have had their eyes opened, to whom the mountain 

 is no longer misty and dark, but flaming with light. 



" Ne sutor supra crepidam " — do not trust the cobbler 

 in things outside his calling — is a proverb that cuts both 

 ways. The biologist may surely be allowed to know 

 things that relate to his own caUing : the man who never 

 dreams of life, and the science of life, should be careful 

 how he contradicts its experts. On the other hand, 

 bigotry is not confined to one class of controversialists ; 

 some very bitter things have been said against faith by 

 men whose culture and science ought to have taught 

 them better. We have a right to look for nothing but 

 " sweetness and light " from the apostles and prophets 

 of this new dispensation. 



