O radiant morning, salute the sun,
Roused like a huntsman to the chase, and with
Thy buskin'd feet appear upon our hills."
But what of modern science? Does not that eliminate the mystic
element? Far from that, it increases it. The dominant theory is
that light is a sensation caused by waves in ether which travel at
a speed of 186,000 miles a second. Of this theory Whewell
wrote in 1857 that Optics had "reached her grand generalisation
in a few years by sagacious and happy speculations." But it was
not thus that a halting-place was gained. For there succeeded the
discoveries of Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, Hertz, and other great
physicists who used the old theory merely as a foundation for a
superstructure of unsuspected and wondrous proportions. The
theory of electrons came to the front, and the phenomena of
light are being linked on to those of electricity. The phenomena
of electricity, again, are being linked on to those of life. And
thus, as ever where our deepest intuitions are concerned, the
nature-mystic finds himself in harmony with and abreast of the
latest developments of modern knowledge.
At the dawn of human thought light and life were dimly but
persistently felt to be akin, if not identical. And now we know it
was a deep prompting of mother nature which caused men to
give to their divine beings the simple name--"the Bright Ones."
CHAPTER XXX
THE EXPANSE OF HEAVEN--COLOUR
"The broad open eye of the solitary sky.
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