Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/134

 who scale the heavens that they may bring down fire to enlighten and comfort their fellow-men, must not hope to escape the vulture and the rock. I have always thought that wondrous story the deepest and the most suggestive in the whole heathen mythology. Its hero was the first discoverer, the first free-thinker, the first reformer. He was even proof against the seductions of woman, and detected in Pandora's box the multiplicity of evils that secured the presence of Hope within its compass, and prevented her flying back to the heaven whence she came. The only Olympian deity he would condescend to worship was the Goddess of Wisdom; and she it was who taught her votary to outwit Jupiter, the great principle of what may be termed physical nature. By science man baffles the elements, or renders them subservient to his purpose. He was a herbalist,