a spout, and the eagle a beak, the one a lid on its back, the other a pair of wings,—­not to speak of the distinction also of volition which the philosophers may properly call merely a form or mode of force,—­but then, to an artist, the form or mode, is the gist of the business.  The kettle chooses to sit still on the hob, the eagle to recline on the air.  It is the fact of the choice, not the equal degree of temperature in the fulfillment of it, which appears to us the more interesting circumstance—­though the other is very interesting too.  Exceedingly so!  Don’t laugh children, the philosophers have been doing quite splendid work lately, in their own way especially, the transformation of force into light is a great piece of systematized discovery and this notion about the sun being supplied with his flame by ceaseless meteoric hail is grand, and looks very likely to be true.  Of course, it is only the old gunlock,—­flint and steel,—­on a large scale but the order and majesty of it are sublime.  Still, we sculptors and painters care little about it.  “It is very fine,” we say, “and very useful, this knocking the light out of the sun, or into it, by an eternal cataract of planets.  But you may hail away, so, forever, and you will not knock out what we can.  Here is a bit of silver, not the size of half-a-crown, on which, with a single hammer stroke, one of us, two thousand and odd years ago, hit out the head of the Apollo of Clazomenas.  It is merely a matter of form; but if any of you philosophers, with your whole planetary system to hammer with, can hit out such another bit of silver as this,—­we will take off our hats to you.  For the present, we keep them on.”

Mary.  Yes, I understand; and that is nice; but I don’t think we shall any of us like having only form to depend upon.

L. It was not neglected in the making of Eve, my dear.

Mary.  It does not seem to separate us from the dust of the ground.  It is that breathing of the life which we want to understand.

L. So you should:  but hold fast to the form, and defend that first, as distinguished from the mere transition of forces.  Discern the molding hand of the potter commanding the clay, from his merely beating foot, as it turns the wheel.  If you can find incense, in the vase, afterwards,—­well:  but it is curious how far mere form will carry you ahead of the philosophers.  For instance, with regard to the most interesting of all their modes of force—­ light;—­they never consider how far the existence of it depends on the putting of certain vitreous and nervous substances into the formal arrangement which we call an eye.  The German philosophers began the attack, long ago, on the other side, by telling us, there was no such thing—­as light at all, unless we chose to see it:  now, German and English, both, have reversed their engines, and insist that light would be exactly the same light that it is, though nobody could ever see it.  The fact being that the force must be there, and the eyes there; and “light” means the effect of the one on the other;—­and perhaps, also—­(Plato saw farther into that mystery than any one has since, that I know of),—­on something a little way within the eyes; but we may stand quite safe, close behind the retina, and defy the philosophers.