�������t¶��

“Sir David Brewster, who supposes the stars to be inhabited, as being ‘the hope of the Christian,’ asks, ‘is it necessary that an immortal soul be hung upon a skeleton of bone; must it see with two eyes, and rest on a duality of limbs? May it not rest in a Polyphemus with one eye ball, or an Argus with a hundred? May it not reign in the giant forms of the Titans, and direct the hundred hands of Briareus?’

The ancients were not well agreed who they were: some even said that they were Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges, the sons of Tellus and the sun.

In the latter instance, the disputants having chosen Briareus as umpire, the prize was awarded to him as the most powerful of all the gods except Jupiter.

But if the visionary has failed to extricate the fair spirit from its earthly cerements, the practical philosopher has produced from the grimy lump a gem, in comparison to which the diamond is valueless—has evoked a Titanic power, before which the gods of ancient fable could not hold their heaven for an hour; a power wielding the thunderbolt of Jove, the sledge of Vulcan, the club of Hercules; which takes to itself the talaria of Mercury, the speed of Iris, and the hundred arms of Briareus.

Yes, says Lykinos, take the first step and the rest is easy—Philosophy depends on a first assumption—take the Briareus of the poets with three heads and six hands, and then work him out,—six eyes, six ears, three voices talking at once, thirty fingers—you cannot quarrel with the details as they come; once grant the beginning, and the rest comes flooding in, irresistible, hardly now susceptible of doubt.