FIELD AND STUDY 



truth of a single second, but we may readily acquit 

 him of any violation of poetic truth. 



§ ' 

 It is not easy to think of invisible or of dark light, 

 yet such exists. The ethereal vibrations produced by 

 the discharge of a Ley den jar obey all the laws of 

 optics, and yet the eye cannot perceive them; they 

 are too slow. They are only from a hundred thou- 

 sand to a million a second. What we call light is an 

 experience or sensation of the eye, and the eye takes 

 in only about two thirds of the vibrations that go 

 out from the sun. Of the potent ultra-violet rays the 

 eye knows nothing. The retina is incompetent to 

 respond to these rays, they are so rapid. 



§ 

 All energy comes from the sun, and the machin- 

 ery of the molecular process, the materialists tell 

 us, determines what form it shall take, whether 

 a plant or a man. But some agen,t or force must in- 

 tervene between the sun and the elements, some- 

 thing must weave the force into •different patterns. 

 Do the molecules hold the pattern? Evidently the 

 molecules of the man hold the pattern of the man, 

 and the molecules of the frog hold the pattern of 

 the frog, and of the cabbage and the oak, the same. 

 But what did they hold before they entered into 

 this copartnership? We have to postulate the organ- 

 ism to set up this weaving. Carbon and oxygen do 

 not set up this weaving of their own accord in dead 

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