A CHEMICAL PROLOGUE. 671 



Infinity. He is one both with that star-beam which left its home 

 before America was discovered, and with the blowing flower 

 which a breath of summer has called forth. It is no mean van- 

 tage-ground, nor one which the spectacled haunter of libraries 

 can afford to despise, to feel one's self a sharer in the pulsating 

 life of the universe, to be a citizen of space, at home everywhere. 

 Such is the position of the earnest scientist. He is the true poet 

 and the true prophet. He lives in communion with a God who 

 is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever ; in whom there is no 

 variableness, neither shadow of turning. This absolute confidence 

 in the inexorableness of divine law begets a serenity of life which 

 is with difficulty disturbed, and a deep morality of thought and 

 deed which is seldom the child of more local revelation. The idea 

 of chance or caprice becomes impossible. 



" All's love, but all's law." 



It is with a curious pity that the student of Nature watches the 

 crowd of worshipers at the Tower of Babel. He is willing to 

 admit, with Max Muller, that there is no thought without lan- 

 guage, and no language without thought ; but so pre-eminent 

 seems the thought to him that he feels well assured that a suit- 

 able vehicle will not be wanting for the carriage of so royal a 

 guest. To such a one, the conduct of life becomes the chief 

 end of education. The crucial test which he applies to each 

 branch of study offered to either young or old is not whether it 

 is useful, but whether it is the most useful. He will not be satis- 

 fied with any choice that is merely second best, for time mean- 

 while is flying, and, if we do this, we can not do that. The question 

 is not whether any particular course will bring wealth of infor- 

 mation, but rather whether it will induce fullness of living. It is 

 surprising with what a small stock of facts, if they be of the right 

 sort, a man can get along, and still be happy and progressive. I 

 remember, as a boy, the envious regard which I bestowed upon a 

 little friend of mine, whose dexterity in the difficult art of parsing 

 quite surpassed my own feebler efforts. But one day I made the 

 discovery that not only was he no better for entertaining that sort 

 of knowledge, but, what was more surprising, his English was no 

 more polished than my own. Since that time I have had frequent 

 occasion to recall the discovery, and I confess that it has recon- 

 ciled me to an ignorance upon many similar subjects. The sub- 

 stitution of this artificial, lifeless knowledge for that which is 

 natural and organic, must be regarded as scarcely less than crimi- 

 nal by those who hold the true aim of culture to be the evolution 

 of wisdom and of goodness. A man can not be expected to think 

 soundly about a world of which he is quite ignorant, or to bring 

 himself into relation with a universe whose confines are nearer 

 than his finger-ends. 



