gases and fiery matter and not a god. We are grateful for the
sun instead of to him, and surely we shall look at him with new
interest, now that we can picture his tiny messengers, the
sunbeams, flitting over all space, falling upon our earth, giving
us light to see with, and beautiful colours to enjoy, warming the
air and the earth, making the refreshing rain, and, in a word,
filling the world with life and gladness.



Week 7

LECTURE III The Aerial Ocean in Which We Live

Did you ever sit on the bank of a river in some quiet spot where
the water was deep and clear, and watch the fishes swimming
lazily along? When I was a child this was one of my favourite
occupations in the summertime on the banks of the Thames, and
there was one question which often puzzled me greatly, as I
watched the minnows and gudgeon gliding along through the water.
Why should fishes live in something and be often buffeted about
by waves and currents, while I and others lived on the top of the
earth and not in anything? I do not remember ever asking anyone
about this; and if I had, in those days people did not pay much
attention to children's questions, and probably nobody would have
told me, what I now tell you, that we do live in something quite
as real and often quite as rough and stormy as the water in which
the fishes swim. The something in which we live is air, and the
reason that we do not perceive it, is that we are in it, and that
it is a gas, and invisible to us; while we are above the water in