Page:On the various forces of nature and their relations to each other.djvu/18

14 with submission to you, we will take such course as you may think fit,—either to go on, or discontinue them: and although I now feel much weakened by the pressure of illness (a mere cold) upon me, both in facility of expression and clearness of thought, I shall here claim, as I always have done on these occasions, the right of addressing myself to the younger members of the audience. And for this purpose, therefore, unfitted as it may seem for an elderly infirm man to do so, I will return to second childhood and become, as it were, young again amongst the young.

Let us now consider, for a little while, how wonderfully we stand upon this world. Here it is we are born, bred, and live, and yet we view these things with an almost entire absence of wonder to ourselves respecting the way in which all this happens. So small, indeed, is our wonder, that we are never taken by surprise; and I do think that, to a young person of ten, fifteen, or twenty years of age, perhaps the first sight of a cataract or a mountain would occasion him more surprise than he had ever felt