Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/258

 242 CRITICAL STUDIES merged. Or we may answer, applying a metaphor which has been with good reason much used, that the mountain-peaks which in any district first reflect the rays of the dawn exercise httle or no influence on the dawn's development, even in relation to the country around them ; they cast some glimmer of light into obscure valleys below (whose obscurity, on the other hand, their shadows make trebly deep when the sun is sinking) ; they prophesy very early of the coming noontide ; we may judge as to their positions and altitudes by the periods of their reflection ; but the dawn would grow and become noon, and the noon would sink and become night, just the same if they were not there. So the Spirit of the Ages, the Zeitgeist, is developed universally and independently by its own mysterious laws throughout mankind ; and the eminent men from whom it first radiates the expression of what we call a new aspect (the con- tinuous imperceptible increments of change having accumulated to an amount of change which we can clearly perceive, and which even our gross standards are fine enough to measure), the illustrious prototypes of an age, really cast but a faint reflex upon those beneath them ; and while pre-eminently interesting in biography, are of small account in history except as prominent indices of growth and progress and decay, as early effects, not efficient causes. They help us to read clearly the advance of time ; but this advance they do not cause any more than the gnomon of a sundial causes the procession of the hours which it indicates, or a tidal-rock the swelling of the seas whose oncoming is signalled in white foam around it and in shadowed waters over it.