Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/385

 Our artist has pictured the lamp of science as a luminous hand. What is the meaning of this curious emblem? Reflect for a moment, and you will detect a deep truth hidden in this fancy. Science, dear reader, is the magical hand that points out truth and strikes down falsehood; and, more than that, it is the magical hand which fashions the crude materials of the world in objects of beauty, which constructs and moves all kinds of machinery, which performs Herculean feats of strength, and executes works of marvellous delicacy. But what has Science to do with the wolf and the hog at the bottom of the emblem? Nothing, indeed, except to keep them out of mischief! The wolf stands for the lawless man who preys upon his fellow mortals and lives by crime; the hog for the ignorant glutton who wallows in the mire of indolence, devouring everything that comes in his way. We trust that these brutes in human form will one day become extinct, and that the chains which depend from our wonderful lamp will be no longer needed; at present, however, it is absolutely necessary to restrain the wolf from interfering with those who labour in the light of science, and the hog from devouring their well-earned food. Having thus "pointed a moral" in the emblem that "adorns our concluding tale," we have now to bid the reader farewell.

An unpleasant task is this leave-taking, dear reader. We have journeyed together for some time,