746 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and that nature is the expression of a definite order with which nothing 

 interferes. 



Interesting, indeed, these results of science are, important they are, 

 and we should all be acquainted with them. But what I now wish 

 you to mark is, that we are still, when they are propounded to us and 

 we receive them, we are still in the sphere of intellect and knowledge. 

 And for the generality of men there will be found, I say, to arise, when 

 they have duly taken in the proposition that their ancestor was " a hairy 

 quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal 

 in his habits," there will be found to arise an invincible desire to relate 

 this proposition to the sense within them for conduct and to the sense 

 for beauty. But this the men of science will not do for us, and will 

 hardly, even, profess to do. They will give us other pieces of knowl- 

 edge, other facts, about other animals and their ancestors, or about 

 plants, or about stones, or about stars ; and they may finally bring us 

 to those "general conceptions of the universe which have been forced 

 upon us," says Professor Huxley, " by physical science." But still it 

 will be knowledge only which they give us ; knowledge not put for 

 us into relation with our sense for conduct, our sense for beauty, and 

 touched with emotion by being so put ; not thus put for us, and 

 therefore, to the majority of mankind, after a certain while, unsatisfy- 

 ing, wearying. 



Not to the born naturalist, I admit. But what do we mean by a 

 born naturalist ? We mean a man in whom the zeal for observing 

 nature is so strong and eminent that it marks him off from the bulk 

 of mankind. Such a man will pass his life happily in collecting 

 natural knowledge and reasoning upon it, and will ask for nothing, 

 or hardly anything, more. I have heard it said that the sagacious 

 and admirable naturalist whom we have lately lost, Mr. Darwin, once 

 owned to a friend that for his part he did not experience the necessity 

 for two things which most men find so necessary to them poetry and 

 religion ; science and the domestic affections, he thought, were enough. 

 To a born naturalist, I can well understand that this should seem so. 

 So absorbing is his occupation with nature, so strong his love for his 

 occupation, that he goes on acquiring natural knowledge and reason- 

 ing upon it, and has little time or inclination for thinking about get- 

 ting it related to the desire in man for conduct, the desire in man for 

 beauty. He relates it to them for himself as he goes along, so far as 

 he feels the need ; and he draws from the domestic affections all the 

 additional solace necessary. But then Darwins are very rare. An- 

 other great and admirable master of natural knowledge, Faraday, was 

 a Sandemanian. That is to say, he related his knowledge to his in- 

 stinct for conduct and to his instinct for beauty by the aid of that re- 

 spectable Scottish sectary, Robert Sandeman. And, for one man 

 among us with the disposition to do as Darwin did in this respect, 

 there are fifty, probably, with the disposition to do as Faraday. 



