o some other truth. Truth is often of a dual
character, taking the form of a magnet with two poles; and many of the
differences which agitate the thinking part of mankind are to be traced to
the exclusiveness with which partisan reasoners dwell upon one half of the
duality in forgetfulness of the other half. The proper course appears to
be to state both halves strongly, and allow each its fair share in the
formation of the resultant conviction. But this waiting for the statement
of the two sides of the question implies patience. It implies a resolution
to suppress indignation if the statement of the one half should clash with
our convictions, and to repress equally undue elation if the
half-statement should happen to chime in with our views. It implies a
determination to wait calmly for the statement of the whole, before we
pronounce judgment in the form of either acquiescence or dissent.

This premised and, I trust, accepted, let us enter upon our task. There
have been writers who affirmed that the pyramids of Egypt were the
productions of nature; and in his early youth Alexander von Humboldt wrote
a learned essay with the express object of refuting this notion. We now
regard the pyramids as the work of men's hands, aided probably by
machinery of which no record remains. We picture to ourselves the swarming
workers toiling at these vast erections, lifting the inert stones, and,
guided by the volition, the skill, and possibly at times by the whip, of
the architect, placing them in their proper positions. The blocks in this
case were moved and posited by a power external to themselves, and the
final form of the pyramid expresses the thought of its human builder.

Let us pass from this illustration of constructive power to another of a
different kind. When a solution of common salt is slowly evaporated, the
water which holds the salt in solution disappears, but the salt itself
remains behind. At a certain stage of concentration the salt can no longer
retain the liquid form: its particles, or molecules, as they are called,
begin to deposit themselves as minute solids, so minute, indeed, as to
defy all microscopic power. As evaporation continues, solidification goes
on, and we finally obtain, through the clustering together of innumerable
molecules, a finite crystalline mass of a definite form. What is this
form? It sometimes seems a mimicry of the architecture of Egypt. We have
little pyramids built by the salt, terrace abo