3 68 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



than ever before in the world of scien- 

 tific inquiry, the masses of the people 

 are doing little or nothing to avail 

 themselves of it. 



Complex and difficult the scien- 

 tific study of human nature may he, 

 but it is demanded by the impera- 

 tive exigencies of the age. "What is 

 wanted is a better knowledge of human 

 relations in the social state ; and that 

 resolves itself immediately into a bet- 

 ter knowledge of the beings which ex- 

 ist in that state, for society is what its 

 human units make it. Ignorance of 

 men, of the nature of their weaknesses 

 and vices, and the springs and laws of 

 their action, is at the root of the 

 chief impostures by which society is 

 scourged. The quackeries of the plat- 

 form, the bar, the state-house, and the 

 pulpit, the gigantic swindles of specu- 

 lators, and the frauds of petty traders, 

 the omnipresent over-reachings and 

 deceptions by which people are victim- 

 ized in the intercourse of life, are but 

 legitimate consequences of the gross 

 and wide-spread ignorance of human 

 nature. We are deafened with the dis- 

 cordant cries of political and social 

 reformers; but here is where they must 

 begin, if any thing valuable and per- 

 manent is to be accomplished in the 

 way of reform. 



THE DISCOVERER OF OXYGEN. 

 Several thousand people assem- 

 bled the other day in the Central 

 Park to unveil the statue of Shake- 

 speare. The ceremonies were impres- 

 sive. The illustrious English poet, newly 

 done in bronze, was celebrated prosai- 

 cally by the most illustrious of American 

 poets, and then he was glorified poeti- 

 cally by another distinguished American 

 poet, while this effect was heightened 

 by the fine vocalization of our eminent 

 interpreter of the great dramatist, and 

 altogether it was a most poetic and 

 Shakespearian affair. 



Such an event will suggest different 

 reflections in different minds; we are 



in the mood of contemplating it chem- 

 ically. As the symposium is ever qual- 

 ified by the libations, it will be asked 

 what they had to drink. As befitted 

 the exaltation of the hour, they drank 

 the invisible ether that is never con- 

 veyed in goblets a solar distilment of 

 the beautiful foliage of the park, and to 

 this they owed all the inspiration of 

 the occasion. The afflatus was an im- 

 mediate effect of oxygen gas. It was 

 through it and by it that the entire 

 concourse lived, and moved, and had 

 its poetic being. As the first condition 

 of cerebral action is a constant stream 

 of oxygenated blood driven through 

 the brain, the broad current of thought 

 and feeling in the assembled multitude 

 was sustained by this element of the 

 vital stream. That withdrawn, the 

 prose of Bryant, the poetry of Stod- 

 dard, and the elocution of Booth, with 

 the appreciative applause of the au- 

 dience, would have suddenly and simul- 

 taneously ceased. For, whatever may 

 be the case in other spheres of being, in 

 this sphere the spiritual world of 

 thought and feeling is created, instant 

 by instant, by the chemical energy of 

 oxygen. Let none accuse us of mate- 

 rialism, for this doctrine has high and 

 sacred authority. In its account of 

 human creation, the oldest scripture 

 declares that God " breathed into his 

 nostrils the breath of life, and man he- 

 came a living soul ; " and the breath of 

 life we now know to be oxygen gas. 



But, for many thousands of years, it 

 w r as not known. Humanity had run 

 through a vast career before this truth 

 was reached. Mighty empires had 

 come and gone; great cities had been 

 built and had perished ; civilizations 

 had risen and passed away; arts, liter- 

 atures, philosophies, and religions, had 

 become ascendant and had declined be- 

 fore men found out the constitution of 

 the air what and why they breathe. 



We ow r e this most brilliant and im- 

 portant of modern discoveries to Dr. 

 Joseph Priestley, of England. He was 



