Under the forces we have been considering, acting as so many contending armies, matter passes from one condition to another, and what is now a living and a breathing creature, or a delicate and sweetly-scented flower, has been a portion of the amorphous mass which once lay in the darkness of the deep ocean, and it will again, in the progress of time, pass into that condition where no evidences of organization can be found,--again, perhaps, to arise clothed with more exalted powers than even man enjoys. When man places himself in contrast with the Intelligences beyond him, he feels his weakness; and the extent of power which he can discover at work, guided by a mysterious law, is such, that he is dwarfed by its immensity. But looking on the past, surveying the progress of matter through the inorganic forms up to the higher organizations, until at length man stands revealed as the chief figure in the foreground of the picture, the monarch of a world on which such elaborate care has been bestowed, and the absolute ruler of all things around him, he rises like a giant in the conscious strength of his far-searching mind. That so great, so noble a being, should suffer himself to be degraded by the sensualities of life to a level with the creeping things, upon which he has the power to tread, is a lamentable spectacle, over which angels must weep. The curious connection between the superstitions of races, the traditionary tales of remote tribes, and the developments of the truths of science, are often of a very marked character, and they cannot but be regarded as instructive. In the wonders of “olden time” fiction has ever delighted; and a thousand pictures have been produced of a period when beings lived and breathed upon the earth which have no existence now. Hydras, harpies, and sea-monsters, figure in the myths of antiquity. In the mythology of the northern races of Europe we have fiery flying dragons, and Poetry has placed these as the guardians of the “hoarded spirit” and protectors of the enchanted gold.