theirs, revealed the power of a yet higher
order of nobility, not of a registered ancestry of fifteen generations,
but one absolutely spotless in its escutcheon, preordained in the council
chamber of eternity." I think you'll find I have got that sentence
right, word for word, and there 's a great deal more in it than many good
folks who call themselves after the reformer seem to be aware of. The
Pope put his foot on the neck of kings, but Calvin and his cohort crushed
the whole human race under their heels in the name of the Lord of Hosts.
Now, you see, the point that people don't understand is the absolute and
utter humility of science, in opposition to this doctrinal
self-sufficiency. I don't doubt this may sound a little paradoxical at
first, but I think you will find it is all right. You remember the
courtier and the monarch,--Louis the Fourteenth, wasn't it?--never mind,
give the poor fellows that live by setting you right a chance. "What
o'clock is it?" says the king. "Just whatever o'clock your Majesty
pleases," says the courtier. I venture to say the monarch was a great
deal more humble than the follower, who pretended that his master was
superior to such trifling facts as the revolution of the planet. It was
the same thing, you remember, with King Canute and the tide on the
sea-shore. The king accepted the scientific fact of the tide's rising.
The loyal hangers-on, who believed in divine right, were too proud of the
company they found themselves in to make any such humiliating admission.
But there are people, and plenty of them, to-day, who will dispute facts
just as clear to those who have taken the pains to learn what is known
about them, as that of the tide's rising. They don't like to admit these
facts, because they throw doubt upon some of their cherished opinions.
We are getting on towards the last part of this nineteenth century. What
we have gained is not so much in positive knowledge, though that is a
good deal, as it is in the freedom of discussion of every subject that
comes within the range of observation and inference. How long is it
since Mrs. Piozzi wrote,--"Let me hope that you will not pursue geology
till it leads you into doubts destructive of all comfort in this world
and all happiness in the next"?

The Master paused and I remained silent, for I was thinking things I
could not say.

--It is well always to have a woman near by when one is talking on this
class of subjects. Whe