, up and down, making one inch forward
for three vertically, but never pausing, always onwards at racing
speed. A shadow sweeps rapidly over the grass--it is that of a rook
which has flown between us and the sun. Looking upwards into the
deep azure of the sky, intently gazing into space and forgetting for
a while the life around and beneath, there comes into the mind an
intense desire to rise, to penetrate the height, to become part and
parcel of that wondrous infinity which extends overhead as it
extends along the surface. The soul full of thought grows
concentrated in itself, marvels only at its own destiny, labours to
behold the secret of its own existence, and, above all, utters
without articulate words a prayer forced from it by the bright sun,
by the blue sky, by bird and plant:--Let me have wider feelings,
more extended sympathies, let me feel with all living things,
rejoice and praise with them. Let me have deeper knowledge, a nearer
insight, a more reverent conception. Let me see the mystery of
life--the secret of the sap as it rises in the tree--the secret of
the blood as it courses through the vein. Reveal the broad earth and
the ends of it--make the majestic ocean open to the eye down to its
inmost recesses. Expand the mind till it grasps the idea of the
unseen forces which hold the globe suspended and draw the vast suns
and stars through space. Let it see the life, the organisms which
dwell in those great worlds, and feel with them their hopes and joys
and sorrows. Ever upwards, onwards, wider, deeper, broader, till
capable of all--all. Never did vivid imagination stretch out the
powers of deity with such a fulness, with such intellectual grasp,
vigour, omniscience as the human mind could reach to, if only its
organs, its means, were equal to its thought. Give us, then, greater
strength of body, greater length of days; give us more vital energy,
let our limbs be mighty as those of the giants of old. Supplement
such organs with nobler mechanical engines--with extended means of
locomotion; add novel and more minute methods of analysis and
discovery. Let us become as demi-gods. And why not? Whoso gave the
gift of the mind gave also an infinite space, an infinite matter for
it to work upon, an infinite time in which to work. Let no one
presume to define the boundaries of that divine gift--that
mind--for all the experience of eight thousand years proves beyond a
question that the limits of its powers will never