62 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC. 



water stagnates, may be dried and remain to all appearance inert as the mere dust 

 of the earth for weeks and months, and yet, on the application of a little water, will 

 again become active and exert the functions of life with the same energy as before. 

 Examine it again in its state of highest perfection, in the most elaborate forms of 

 vegetable and animal being, and you will find that a suspension for a few seconds 

 only of some one of the processes in which it is concerned reduces the compli- 

 cated structure, but a moment before flourishing in full vigour and activity, 

 to a decaying or inanimate mass of dead matter. Once more, let us contrast it as 

 displayed in an individual of our own race ; born, it is true, a child, growing 

 up through the period of youth into manhood, and at length gradually descending 

 into the vale of years, but still, throughout, a perfect man ; and in the insect egg, 

 deposited by its parent and cradled upon some other form of animal or vegetable 

 being, becoming in the second stage of its existence a worm which devours its 

 nest, and then crawls upon the ground ; in a third stage losing all semblance of 

 life, and enveloped in a mimic shroud, at length bursting into a new and glorious 

 existence, arrayed in glowing colours, to range with expanded wing, the free, the • 

 unfettered inhabitant of air." 



In investigating the phenomena of living beings, the eloquent lecturer observed — 

 " To define the limits where instinct ends and reason commences, would indeed be 

 a diflficult task, and the investigation of this principle and of that assemblage of 

 faculties constituting reason, and the powers of the mind, would plunge us at once 

 into the depths of metaphysical discussion. Without entering here upon this 

 intricate subject, it is sufficient for us to derive the conclusion — a conclusion to 

 which the investigation of the phenomena of life, as exhibited in the highest link of 

 the animal creation, our own species, inevitably leads — that in man at least, another 

 and a higher principle than even that of life exerts its sway — a principle which leads 

 him to thirst after knowledge, and to seek his own and another's good — a principle 

 which, not satisfied with the transient pleasures and the existence which the life 

 that he now enjoys confers upon him, constrains him to aspire to worlds yet un- 

 known, and to seek after an immortality which the records of revelation have shewn 

 that he is hereafter to inherit. 



" I say not that these aspirations after eternal truth and immutable good are 

 natural to man in his present fallen state, but perhaps there is no individual so 

 dark — none so utterly debased — at least where the light of Christianity sheds its 

 benign influence, who has not, at some part of the period which intervenes between 

 his attaining the years of reflection and the termination of his existence on this 

 passing scene, experienced some desires after that existence in the regions of bliss 

 to which a way has been opened through the beneficence of his Creator. 



" When the lamp of science sheds a light upon this path — when it leads man to 

 a more intimate knowledge of the ways and of the wisdom of the Almighty Being 

 who formed him from the dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life— 

 when to man the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his 

 handy-work, then does the record of creation fulfil its most important end- 

 instruction in that true wisdom, the possession of which can alone constitute the 

 Christian philosopher. 



" Philosophy, baptised 



In the pure fountain of eternal love, 



Has eyes indeed : and viewing all she sees 



As meant to indicate a God to man. 



Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own." — Cowper. 



We are now most unwillingly forced to pass on to the conclusion of this compre- 

 hensive lecture, which was to the following effect : — 



" And now, before bringing these observations to a conclusion, permit me to lay 

 before you the bright example of one who was all that a man of science should be. 

 Though labouring under every external disadvantage, the child of obscurity, in- 

 debted to the charity of a benevolent public for his education and the support of his 

 early years, behold the revered Newton holding on his course in the paths of calm 

 philosophy ; at every step of his progress amply repaying the fostering care of that 

 public ; conferring benefits upon his fellow creatures in the most exalted mode : 

 at length, receiving the highest distinctions which science has to offer, and achiev- 

 ing for himself a name, imperishable, and ranking with the highest which 

 grace the annals of mankind. Behold him in his hours of study, developing those 



