THE STUDY OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 455 



uted to the employment of thousands of printers, by enabling Esparto 

 grass to be bleached and formed into paper for the use of our daily 

 press. The numerous experimental investigations in relation to coal- 

 gas have been the means of extending the use of that substance, 

 and of increasing the employment of workmen and others connected 

 with its manufacture. The discovery of the alkaline metals by Davy, 

 of cyanide of potassium, of nickel, phosphorus, the common acids, and 

 a multitude of other substances, has led to the employment of a whole 

 army of workmen in the conversion of those substances into articles of 

 utility. The foregoing examples might be greatly enlarged upon, and 

 a great many others might be selected from the sciences of physics and 

 chemistry : but those mentioned will suffice. There is not a force of 

 Nature, nor scarcely a material substance that we employ, which has 

 not been the subject of several, and in some cases of numerous, original 

 experimental researches, many of which have resulted, in a greater or 

 less degree, in increasing the employment for workmen and others." 

 (Nature, No. 25.) 



Suppose that any one of you, learning a little sound natural history, 

 should observe nothing but the hedgerow-plants, he would find that 

 there is much more to be seen in those mere hedgerow-plants than he 

 fancies now. The microscope will reveal to him in the tissues of any 

 wood, of any seed, wonders which will first amuse him, then puzzle 

 him, and at last (I hope) awe him, as he perceives that smallness of size 

 interferes in no way with perfection of development, and that " Na- 

 ture," as has been well said, " is greatest in that which is least." And 

 more. Suppose that he went further still. Suppose that he extended 

 his researches somewhat to those minuter vegetable forms, the mosses, 

 fungi, lichens. Suppose that he went a little further still, and tried 

 what the microscope would show him in any stagnant pool, whether 

 fresh water or salt, of Desmidise, Diatoms, and all those wondrous 

 atomies which seem as yet to defy our classification into plants or ani- 

 mals. Suppose he learned something of this, but nothing of aught else. 

 "Would he have gained no solid wisdom ? He would be a stupider man 

 than I have a right to believe any of you to be, if he had not gained 

 thereby somewhat of the most valuable of treasures, namely, that 

 scientific habit of mind which (as has been well said) is only common- 

 sense well regulated, the art of seeing ; the art of knowing what he 

 sees ; the art of comparing, of perceiving true likenesses aud true differ- 

 ences, and so of classifying and arranging what he sees ; the art of 

 connecting facts together in his own mind, in chains of cause and 

 effect ; and that accurately, patiently, calmly, without prejudice, vani- 

 ty, or temper. Accuracy, patience, freedom from prejudice, careless- 

 ness for all except the truth, whatever the truth maybe are not these 

 virtues which it is worth any trouble to gain ? Virtues, not merely of 

 the intellect, but of the character ; which, once gained, a man can ap- 

 ply to all subjects, and employ for the acquisition of all solid knowl- 



