it were, with Difference." The inter-assumption of heat by a mass of metal, pretation of an external action by any and the reception of sound and light by particular sense, and the transmutation the brain. Having recognized from the of an external impression into an im- foregoing remarks the fact that the senses pression capable of being recognized are limited in their capabilities of obserby the brain, involves this principle of vation, and otherwise may often give falRelativity. The process of sifting the lacious results, we must at the outset relatively absolute from the absolutely provide ourselves with a suitable organ relative, or of stating the relative in terms of observation. And here we must beg of the absolute, should be diligently at- the reader to grant us a few important tempted in the investigations of nature. concessions; we must divest ourselves Although, as we have attempted to of this "muddy vesture of decay," if we show, we are surrounded by numberless wish to hear the music of the spheres ; unseen actions, we can, to some extent - our bodies will be in the way if we wish faintly and dimly indeed visualize them to glide amongst ultimate atoms. We in our mind's eye; and whenever this will therefore dispossess ourselves of the can be done without hypothesizing too material part of us, retaining only the eye wildly, without going too far out of the and the ear, associated with our normal world of real existences, we think it be- intellectual powers. But the eye can hoves us to do so. There can be no only be directed towards one point at doubt that those impressions are best once, and if a rapidly moving body passes realized which are seen by the eye of the it, the moving body (like the whirled body, or, if invisible to it, are by mental stick) will appear to be drawn out on action wrought into the similitude of account of the persistence of its image things seen. Throughout the history of on the retina; hence we must have a Natural Philosophy — no matter how more complete instrument of vision. Let subtle the entity. this attempt to vis- us then imagine a sphere whose entire ualize the invisible has always been surface is studded with eyes, and let us apparent the motion-giving anp of Aris- call this organ of vision, for the avoidtotle, the uoloμépeia of Anaxagoras, the ance of repetition, the oculus. We must materia cœlestis of Descartes, the igneous grant it, moreover, the power of conmotion, "gyratorious sen verticillaris "tracting to the size of an atom, and of of Stahl, the "glutinous effluvium" of penetrating where the luminiferous ether the old electricians, the "invisible can penetrate; the faculty of seeing in threads" by which, according to Father Linus, the mercury is held suspended in the barometer, have not the authors of one and all of these pushed imagination to its furthest limit in the attempt to visualize the unseen? And have not the proposers of "subtle effluvia," attractive and repulsive "fluids," "polarized media" for the conveyance of forces, striven to do the same? They have wisely endeavoured to save their conceptions from being dry metaphysical dogmas, unrecognized and unremembered save by abstract mental means, and to fix them in We will now accompany the oculus on our memories by images, however crude its first voyage of discovery. We have they may be, drawn from the more ob- before us a little ingot of silver: we magvious and material world about us. In nify it a few billion times, until for regard to those actions of light, heat, and example it is as large as Australia, and sound, of which we have spoken above, enter it as an oculus. We make ourdo we not try, and ought we not to try selves as small as possible, and perfectly yet more, to realize each phase of their elastic, or all our eyes will be put out, existence under any particular condition and we shall be pounded to pieces, for their generation by the vibrating body, we are surrounded on every side by small, their transferrence by the elastic medium, black, elastic atoms of silver, nearly as their final rest in the brain? large as peas. They are whirling round and round in various planes with exceeding rapidity, in circles about ten feet diameter. It reminds us a little of the Let us endeavour to visualize some of the invisible actions which are perpetually taking place around us, such as the the dark; infinite velocity in any direction, or across any position of rest; power of clearly distinguishing the most rapid motion, and of seeing the imagined but ordinarily unseen; and lastly, power of resisting any extremes of temperature. These gifts being conceded, we have an instrument of vision well suited to our purpose, an all-powerful eye; potent as the winged eye which hovers over the head of Osiris in the Hall of Perfect Justice, when the heart of the deceased trembles in the balance. from end to end the mass is conveying an electric current. The atoms of silver, still retaining their elliptical motion, now assume a peculiar helicoidal motion in varying planes: the mass is under the influence of a magnet. The oculus then goes outside again and stations itself near the base of one of the shining silver mountains; it looks up at the bright lustrous sides, and sees the ether waves dashing down upon them from infinite space; it notices also that the motion of the waves differs from that of the atoms they cannot assimilate it. Consequently the ether-waves are dashed back, like great sea-waves dashing on a rockbound coast; in a word, they are reflected, and to some extent scattered, as ether-foam. effect produced when we look up at a heavy snow-storm accompanied by just enough wind to give the flakes a whirling motion in mid-air; only here the white flakes are exchanged for little black spheroids which move rhythmically. We soon perceive that the velocity augments, the circles become larger, a lurid light surrounds the atoms, the mass no longer preserves its shape: it has exchanged the solid for the liquid condition, and settles down as a vast lake of molten silver. The circles of revolution of the atoms are but slightly larger, they appear now to be eleven or twelve feet diameter. The motion still increases; in other words, the molten silver continues to acquire heat, when suddenly it commences to boil; the atoms, whose velocity has considerably augmented, leave the circu- Once again, the ingot of silver is lar path in which they had hitherto moved, placed in a Cyclopean melting-pot, toand fly off tangentially, moving recti-gether with some sulphur: the oculus lineally through space. Now we fix our places itself at the bottom of the mass, eyes on an atom, and notice that although and diligently watches. The meltingits velocity is enormous, it does not make pot is placed in a furnace; motion is so much progress as we might have expected, because it perpetually comes into collision with other atoms; thus it does not get even a hundred feet of continuous rectilinear motion, its path through space is zigzag, because it is constantly diverted from its straight course by collision with neighbouring atoms. Thus the direction of its motion is changed several hundred times in a second. The atoms are perfectly elastic, and bound off from each other whenever collisions oc cur. The oculus now leaves the interior of the mass, and having reached the outside, notices a vast greenish cloud of silver gas floating above it. Presently the rectilinear motion slackens; the gas is cooling the atoms approach each other until at length they come within the range of their cohesion, which compounds its own rectilinear attractive force with the motion of the atoms into the former circular motion: they abandon their rectilinear for angular velocity. The cloud of silver vapour condenses; a gigantic rain of molten silver falls; the drops are spheroidal and ellipsoidal masses as large as the dome of St. Paul's; they solidify into a lengthened ridge of silver mountains. Again the oculus enters the mass, and finds the atoms still actuated by their ceaseless circular motion of heat. But on looking towards one end of the ridge, the inception of a new kind of motion is perceived; the particles are assimilating an elliptical motion, which travels rapidly rapidly assimilated by the atoms, more quickly by the sulphur than by the silver; at length a white atom of sulphur and two black atoms of silver are seen to coalesce, separate from the rest of the mass, and sink to the bottom as a molecule of sulphide of silver. The molecule continues the motion of heat which the individual atoms had before possessed, but the three coalesced atoms now act as one. The motion is observed to differ altogether, both in kind and velocity, from that of the single atoms; and the oculus no longer recognizes either the sulphur or the silver as separate bodies: the compound molecule now forms indeed a new substance. The individual atoms of the molecule also move relatively to each other. The combination of the two atoms of silver with one atom of sulphur continues until the whole mass of silver has become a new substance. A few million atoms of sulphur remain in the melting-pot in excess; they move more and more rapidly as the heating continues, and ultimately float away and are seen no more. Here ends our first voyage with the oculus. We have seen some actions which are fairly familiar to many of us. We have endeavoured to visualize the assumption of heat by a mass of melted metal; the continued assumption resulting in fusion and vaporization; the subsequent condensation of the vapour; the conveyance of an electric current by the metallic mass; the action of a magnet upon it; the reflection of light from its polished surface; and finally, its union with sulphur under the influence of the force of chemical affinity. Whither shall we travel now? To the fiery maelströms of the sun? To the zone of Saturn? To a cloud of planetary matter condensing into new worlds? Or shall we float with the light of Arcturus and a Lyræ into the spectroscope of Mr. Huggins? Since we have attempted to visualize the infinitely little, let us now transport the oculus to the infinitely great, and place it in the midst of a new solar system about to be formed. The oculus speeds through space; it sees an earth-lit moon; it reaches Mars during mid-winter, it examines the belt of Saturn with interest, and it gains some entirely new ideas about space of four dimensions. It passes the region where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand. At length, far out of sight of our solar system, it comes to a firmamental desert, and sees beneath it an extended nebulous mass, some ten trillion miles in extent; the mass is hazy and cloud-like, and is gradually contracting its limits, until at length it condenses into a semisolid spherical mass, intensely radiant, in fact still white-hot. The sphere assumes rotatory motion, and as the motion augments it bulges out more and more in the direction of its motion; then some dozens of masses of molten matter of different sizes are given off from the circumference of the rotating mass. These fly out in orbits more or less eccentric, and revolve around the great central body, the remains of the original parent mass, and still far larger than any of its offspring. These new worlds possess rotatory motion of their own; one has a girdle; one is accompanied by little moons; some follow a very elliptical path; some rush off into infinite space in hyperbolic curves. The great central mass, now the sun of a vast system, keeps his attendant worlds in order; the greater number revolve about him with regularity. But one of the worlds, a few times larger than our moon, has by the velocity of its impulse been projected into a large and very elliptical orbit, which brings it within the sphere of attraction of a distant, but enormous, sun. Then, as a ship is drawn into a whirlpool, is the errant world drawn to its destruction. It circulates about the greater body, not in a curved path which returns into itself, but an in ever-narrowing spiral. At last comes the final crash: it rushes into the sun with a velocity of more than a million miles a second, and the heat generated by the collision volatilizes the destroyed planet. A thin fiery cloud is now all that remains of what had a short time before been a world. All this, and much more, the oculus perceives, and then returns to earth. With our organ of observation we might now visit those profound depths of the ocean, of which the Challenger is telling us so much; we might swim through a di-electric subject to electrostatic induction; we might inhabit a Geissler's tube, or bury ourselves in a slice of tourmaline, about the time when a highpriest of Nature cries Fiat experimentum in the matter of polarized light. rather visit with the oculus those obscure regions in which perception itself_origi nates. Let us float with a sound-wave into the ear, and with an ether-wave enter the portals of the brain itself. Let us Behold, then, the oculus within the dim porches of the ear, tapping upon the tympanum, through which it passes, and entangles itself among those complicated little bones which anatomists call the malleus, the incus, and the stapes. The tympanum is quivering, and the little bones appear to accept its motion, and to transmit it. As the oculus passes on it sees beneath it what appears to be a deep narrow well the Eustachian tube; then it looks through the fenestra rotunda, and floats through the fenestra ovalis into the perilymph, a clear liquid mass agitated by waves; then it nearly loses itself in the labyrinth and cochlear, a sort of place like the maze at Hampton Court; escaping from this it swims through the endolymph; and finally comes in sight of the cortian fibres, the scala media, and the ends of the auditory nerves. The oculus fails not to see how each particular fibre vibrates to one particular tone or semitone, and it hears the transmitted vibrations around it; as, standing in the belfry at Bruges, the dreaming listener hears about him, now one bell, now another, bursting into song, and at last a great symphony poured from fifty throats of bronze. The oculus now returns to the outer world, and makes friends with an atom of luminiferous ether which is about to enter the eye. But before they can join company the oculus has to shrink to a smaller size than ever before. It has now to enter very microscopical channels, to which a particle the size of a grain of sand would be as a cricket-ball to the channel of a small straw. We next find it with the ether-wave dashing upon the outer surface of the eye. It enters the organism by a gate of horn the cornea and enters the brain itself by a gate of ivory- the optic foramen. We are a little reminded of Virgil's idea of the two gates: sent off by another line of wires; where sometimes the messages originate in the office itself, while at other times clerks rush in breathlessly with messages for instant despatch. The most distant nerves conveyed messages and received back answers, whereupon bodily motions resulted. Thus the will said, "I want to move the arm," and the necessary directions having been given, the arm moved. Or the stomach said, "I am hungry; there is food in the jaws, let them commence operations," and forthwith the jaws began to masticate, and all the auxiliary apparatus of deglutition was simultaneously set in motion. Or the mind said, "I send you these important facts; Having passed the aqueous humour, copy them carefully, and store them away the oculus perceives an increase of re-in a chamber, until I want them." But sistance as it encounters the lens, and on some of these chambers appeared to have emerging enters a vaulted chamber filled very defective locks, and sometimes with a substance as clear as crystal. Im-broken doors. Sunt geminæ somni portæ, quarum altera fertur Cornea.. Altera, candenti perfecta nitens elephanto. pulses are speeding through this with Thus it was that messages continued to extreme velocity, and delivering their be received and transmitted by the brain. messages to the brain. Of all the won- It was apparently a kind of head-quarderful things that the oculus saw in that ters, to which every action was referred crystal chamber, with black walls, and a before being executed. No nerve or window, not yet darkened, which looked muscle ventured to act upon its own acupon the external world, it would take us count without first obtaining leave from too long to tell. It saw there varied head-quarters, which leave, once given, images reflected upon the walls, of things was responded to by the whole mental distant, and things near; it saw too the and bodily system. The heart and the movements of the ciliary muscles which respiratory apparatus were frequent in cause the front surface of the lens to their demands, and had a vast number of change its curvature, and much more. separate telegraph wires for their special It could have lingered there longer, but use and behoof. Soon the will said, "I its guide, the ether-wave, hurried it on, want to read aloud," and the brain at till it reached the far end of the chamber, once commenced to receive communicaand saw the commencement of the optic tions, and to issue the necessary instrucnerve. The particles of the nerve were tions. There were the muscles of the seen to be rapidly vibrating under the arm to be directcd, in order that the influence of the ether-waves, and to be book might be held at a proper distance finally yielding up the motion to the par- from the eyes; and the muscles which ticles of the brain. The oculus floats because the eyes to move horizontally tween the nerve fibres into the brain from the beginning to the end of a line, itself. But there it sees no more. In and vertically from the top to the bottom vain it endeavours to comprehend how of a page; and the vibrations of the parthe delicate impulses of the ether become transmuted into the sensation of light; how the images of the external world are recognized by the centre of perception. ticles of the optic nerve conveying the impression of the letters to be received, and then communicated to the muscles of the larynx, and the muscles of the tongue, and the muscles of the lips, and Although now within the most private the respiratory muscles, and their varied chambers of the great domed palace, the auxiliary apparatus; all these concuroculus can understand but little of its rent causes combined to one end, and inner life. It is reminded somewhat of a thus the words seen by the eye came to central telegraph office, where messages be spoken by the mouth, and the organare perpetually being received, and as ism performed the act of reading aloud. perpetually being sent; where some- Now the passage which was read was times a message is retained, carefully this: "It is likewise certain that, when copied, and stored away in a safe; where we approve of any reason which we do again a message, as soon as received, is not apprehend, we are either deceived, - highways of this undulating district. In returning from market it is usual for the farmers and other gig-gentry to alight at the bottom and walk up. or, if we stumble upon the truth, it is only by chance, and thus we can never possess the assurance that we are not in error. I confess it seldom happens that we judge of a thing when we have ob- One Saturday evening in the month of served we do not apprehend it, because October Bathsheba's vehicle was duly it is a dictate of the natural light, never creeping up this incline. She was sitting to judge of what we do not know. But listlessly in the second seat of the gig, we most frequently err in this, that we whilst walking beside her in a farmer's presume upon a past knowledge of much marketing suit of unusually fashionable to which we give our assent, as to some-cut was an erect, well-made young man. thing treasured up in the memory, and Though on foot, he held the reins and perfectly known to us; whereas, in truth, whip, and occasionally aimed light cuts we have no such knowledge."* Then at the horse's ear with the end of the the reading ceased, and the will some-lash, as a recreation. This man was her what peremptorily asked the brain the precise meaning of the passage. Whereupon the molecules of the brain - notably the corpuscles of the grey matter became strangely agitated; they moved with wonderful motions in wonderful planes; they described in their motions space of four dimensions; they moved in vortices which rolled over each other; in a word, the whole organ was in a state of intense molecular activity. Was this Thought? At all events the will received no answer to its question, and having requested the brain to cudgel itself no more, the subject was dropped, and the reading continued. The oculus was endeavouring to thread its way through the countless corridors and chambers which surrounded it, when it came upon a small cell out of which came the Genius of the place, who conducted it in safety to the frontier. husband, formerly Sergeant Troy, who, having bought his discharge with Bathsheba's money, was gradually transforming himself into a farmer of a spirited and very modern school. People of unalterable ideas still insisted upon calling him “Sergeant" when they met him, which was in some degree owing to his having still retained the well-shaped moustache of his military days, and the soldierly bearing inseparable from his form. "Yes, if it hadn't been for that wretched rain I should have cleared two hundred as easy as looking, my love," he was saying. "Don't you see, it altered all the chances? To speak like a book I once read, wet weather is the narrative, and fine days are the episodes, of our country's history; now isn't that true?" "But the time of year is come for changeable weather." "Well, yes. The fact is, these autumn Our typical man, who says, "I will be- races are the ruin of everybody. Never lieve it when I see it," has after all a did I see such a day as 'twas! 'Tis a good deal of reason on his side, for we wild open place, not far from the sands, cannot speak with any certainty of invisi- and a drab sea rolled in towards us like ble things; we can only say what we be-liquid misery. Wind and rain-good lieve them to be, or what they may be. Lord! Dark? Why, 'twas as black as my It is thus that we must regard the revela-hat before the last race was run. 'Twas tions of the oculus. G. F. RODWELL. From The Cornhill Magazine. FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. CHAPTER XXXIX. COMING HOME: A CRY. On the turnpike-road between Casterbridge and Weatherbury, and about a mile from the latter place, is one of those steep long ascents which pervade the five o'clock, and you couldn't see the horses till they were almost in, leave alone colours. The ground was as heavy as lead, and all judgment from a fellow's experience went for nothing. Horses, riders, people, were all blown about like ships at sea. Three booths were blown over, and the wretched folk inside crawled out upon their hands and knees; and in the next field were as many as a dozen hats at one time. Aye, Pimpernel regularly stuck fast when about sixty yards off, and when I saw Policy stepping on, it did knock my heart against the lining of my ribs, I assure you, my love!" “And you mean, Frank," said Bath |