car; otherwise he would set on fire and annihilate all. The meaning of the Urdar-fountain, that Thor is afraid to make boil, and the cause of his reluctance, will only be comprehended by our physicists when the reciprocal electro-magnetic relations of the innumerable members of the planetary system, now just suspected, shall be thoroughly determined. Glimpses of the truth are given in the recent scientific {162} essays of Professors Mayer and Sterry Hunt. The ancient philosophers believed that not only volcanos, but boiling springs were caused by concentrations of underground electric currents, and that this same cause produced mineral deposits of various natures, which form curative springs. If it be objected that this fact is not distinctly stated by the ancient authors, who, in the opinion of our century were hardly acquainted with electricity, we may simply answer that not all the works embodying ancient wisdom are now extant among our scientists. The clear and cool waters of Urdar were required for the daily irrigation of the mystical mundane tree; and if they had been disturbed by Thor, or active electricity, they would have been converted into mineral springs unsuited for the purpose. Such examples as the above will support the ancient claim of the philosophers that _there is a logos in every mythos_, or a groundwork of truth in every fiction. CHAPTER VI. {163} “Hermes, who is of my ordinances ever the bearer ... Then taking his staff, with which he the eyelids of mortals Closes at will, and the sleeper, at will, reawakens.”—_Odyssey_, Book V. “I saw the Samothracian rings Leap, and steel-filings boil in a brass dish So soon as underneath it there was placed The magnet-stone; and with wild terror seemed The iron to flee from it in stern hate....”—_Lucretius_, Book VI. “But that which especially distinguishes the Brotherhood is their marvellous knowledge of the resources of the medical art. They work not by charms but by simples.” (_MS. Account of the Origin and Attributes of the True Rosicrucians._) One of the truest things ever said by a man of science is the remark made by Professor Cooke in his _New Chemistry_. “The history of Science shows that the age must be prepared before scientific truths can take root and grow. The barren premonitions of science have been barren because these seeds of truth fell upon unfruitful soil; and, as soon as the fulness of the time has come, the seed has taken root and the fruit has ripened ... every student is surprised to find how very little is the share of new truth which even the greatest genius has added to the previous stock.”