Complete. From “Table-Talk.”

LIGHT is, perhaps, the most wonderful of all visible things; that is to say, it has the least analogy to other bodies, and is the least subject to secondary explanations. No object of sight equals it in tenuity, in velocity, in beauty, in remoteness of origin, and closeness of approach. It has “no respect of persons.” Its beneficence is most impartial. It shines equally on the jewels of an Eastern prince and on the dust in the corner of a warehouse. Its delicacy, its power, its utility, its universality, its lovely essence, visible and yet intangible, make up something godlike to our imaginations; and, though we acknowledge divinities more divine, we feel that ignorant as well as wise fault may be found with those who have made it an object of worship.

  One of the most curious things with regard to light is, that it is a body, by means of which we become sensible of the existence of other bodies. It is a substance; it exists as much in the space between our eyes and the object it makes known to us as it does in any other instance; and yet we are made sensible of that object by means of the very substance intervening. When our inquiries are stopped by perplexities of this kind, no wonder that some awe-stricken philosophers have thought further inquiry forbidden; and that others have concluded, with Berkeley, that there is no such thing as substance but in idea, and that the phenomena of creation exist but by the will of the Great Mind, which permits certain apparent causes and solutions to take place, and to act in a uniform manner. Milton doubts whether he ought to say what he felt concerning light:—

	“Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born,
	Or of the eternal co-eternal beam,
	May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
	And never but in an unapproached light
	Dwelt from eternity, dwelt there in thee,
	Bright effluence of bright essence increate.”

And then he makes that pathetic complaint, during which we imagine him sitting with his blind eyes in the sun, feeling its warmth upon their lids, while he could see nothing:—

	“——Thee I revisit safe,
	And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
	Revisit’st not these eyes, that roll in vain
	To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn.”

  As color is imparted solely by the different rays of light with which they are acted upon, the sun literally paints the flowers. The hues of the pink and rose literally come, every day, direct from heaven.