of the science of optics. From these circumstances I infer that it is matter, that it is a substance; but how subtle must be the nature of a substance whose particles can move in every direction without interfering with each other; which can travel about ninety-five millions of miles in about eight minutes, and yet not exert the least perceptible force of collision; which will pass through the hardest crystal, or the purest diamond, with as much ease as through air or water! It is imponderable, and wants various properties which philosophers have thought to be essential to matter; but, in fact, we can seldom tell what is essential to any thing. We see objects and light by the eyes: that you will admit; and you will admit, also, that, without organs of vision, we could have no knowledge of light and colours. But is it the eye that sees? Consider now. You say, Yes. I say, No. When you take up a telescope and look at the moons of Jupiter, you see those moons, which, without the telescope, you could not see. But does the telescope see them? You laugh, perhaps; you think the question childish. It is not so. Suppose a card were slipped in between your eye and the eye-glass, you would then neither perceive the planets nor his satellites. Now, the eye is to vision what the telescope is: it is an optical instrument; it serves to form an image; but the eye itself does not see: it is the organ of communication with light, and is necessary to vision; but the sensation lies in the brain, or rather, I should say, in the mind which inhabits it. Cut off the communication between the eye and the brain, and the same result follows as when a card is placed between the eye and the telescope: all is dark. The optic nerve is the cord through which the brain communicates with the eye; and when, by disease or other means, that nerve, or its expansion, the retina, on which the images of external objects are painted, loses its function, or if, as has been often proved by experiment, the optic nerves be cut across, then the animal sees no longer, though the eyes themselves remain as perfect as before. WALKING. I HAVE ever held walking to be a principal pleasure. It is one, however, which, like health, is usually enjoyed with a most thankless indifference. We hold it cheap, because it costs nothing, while there are many things we prize, merely because we pay for them. Privation appears to be a necessary process, to give a man a just sense of the goods of existence. The original gift is never valued as the restored boon. Ask the convalescent what they feel in the renewed power of locomotion. Let such a one look back, and contrast past and present feeling on the point. Did he not once go forth with the free limb, the erect carriage, nerves braced, and spirits exhilarated; and did he pause to say to himself, This is pleasure-renovation to my physical and mental constitution-an assertion of one of the proud privileges that proclaim me lord of the animal world? See him now with his slow step, and faint brow, looking up with complacent gratification for the restored good, though gh it be in comparison to the original good what the far echo is to the original sound. knew a lady who rarely walked without repining at fortune for depriving her of a carriage; but she I never thought of rejoicing that nature had exempted her from crutches. If walking were taxed, how would the rich walk, and the poor envy them the privilege! How would people then repine at a restriction, which they now voluntarily impose upon themselves! What petitions would be presented to Parliament to remove the duty from this panecea-this source of health and good spirits, this right of humanity, as it would then be contended for! Thus it is that the fruit for which we have but to put forth our hands, remains unplucked, while we risk every thing for the purchased enjoyments, popularly termed pleasures. MY DAUGHTER'S BOOK. NATURAL SCENERY FAVOURABLE TO DEVOTION. WHATEVER leads our minds habitually to the Author of the universe; whatever mingles the voice of nature with the revelation of the Gospel; whatever teaches us to see in all the changes of the world, the varied goodness of Him, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," brings us nearer to the spirit of the Saviour of mankind. But it is not only as encouraging a sincere devotion, that these reflections are favourable to Christianity; there is something, moreover, peculiarly allied to its spirit in such observations of external nature. When our Saviour prepared himself for his temptation, his agony, and death, he retired to the wilderness of Judea, to inhale, we may venture to believe, a holier spirit amidst its solitary scenes, and to approach to a nearer communion with his Father, amidst the sublimest of his works. It is with similar feelings, and to worship the same Father, that the Christian is permitted to enter the temple of nature; and by the spirit of his religion, there is a language infused into the objects which she presents, unknown to the worshippers of former times. To all, indeed, the same objects appear, the same sun shines, the same heavens are open; but to the Christian alone it is permitted to know the Author of these things; to see his Spirit "move in the breeze and blossom in the spring;" and to read in the changes which occur in the material world, the varied expression of eternal love. It is from the influence of Christianity, accordingly, that the key has been given to the signs of nature. It was only when the "Spirit of God moved on the face of the deep," that order and beauty were seen in the world. It is, accordingly, well worthy of observation, that the beauty of nature, as felt in modern times, appears to have been almost unknown to the writers of antiquity. They described, occasionally, the scenes in which they dwelt; but, if we except Virgil, whose gentle mind seems to have anticipated, in this instance, the influence of the gospel, never with any deep feelings of their beauty. Then, as now, the citadel of Athens looked upon the evening sun, and her temples flamed in his setting beam, but what Athenian writer ever described the matchless glories of the scene? Then, as now, the silvery clouds of the Ægean sea rolled round her verdant isles, and sported in the azure vault of heaven; but what Grecian poet has been inspired by the sight? Italian lakes spread their waves beneath a cloud. less sky, and all that is lovely in nature was gather. ed around them, yet even Eustace tells us, that a few detached lines is all that is left in regard to them by the Roman poets. The Alps themselves, "The palaces of nature, whose vast walls even these, the most glorious objects which the eye of man can behold, were regarded by the ancients with sentiments only of dismay or horror; as a barrier from hostile nations, or as the dwelling of barbarous tribes. The torch of religion had not then lightened the face of nature; they knew not the language which she spoke, nor felt that holy spirit, which, to the Christian, gives the sublimity of these scenes. There is something, therefore, in religious reflections on the objects or the changes of nature, which is peculiarly fitting in a Christian teacher. No man will impress them on his heart without becoming happier and better; without feeling warmer gratitude for the beneficence of nature, and deeper thankfulness for the means of knowing the Author of this beneficence which revelation has afforded. "Behold the lilies of the field," says our Saviour, "they toil not, neither do they spin: yet, verily I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." In these words, we perceive the deep sense which he entertained of the beauty even of the minutest of the works of nature. If the admiration of external objects is not directly made the object of his precepts, it is not, on that account, the less allied to the spirit of religion; it springs from the revelation which he has made, and grows with the spirit which he inculcates. The cultivation of this feeling, we may suppose, is |