LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC. 61 



the laws, and the objects of nature leads us. In seeking to read the book of 

 nature, and^o develope the laws by which the processes therein unfolded to our 

 view are governed and regulated, we seek to become acquainted with the opera- 

 tions of that Divine mind which presides alike over every page of the record 

 of creation as over every page of the record of revelation." 



The lecturer then proceeded to unfold the nature of those grand ultimate princi- 

 ples, as displayed in their effects upon material bodies, gravitation, undulatory mo- 

 tion and polarizing forces, which appear to regulate the phenomena of the universe, 

 and the investigation of which constitutes the several branches of science ; and 

 afterwards passed to the consideration of that additional principle of life implanted 

 in organized bodies. 



On the undulatory theory of light, the lecturer remarked — "I may mention the fol- 

 lowing curious instance of the conclusions to which, upon this view of the nature of 

 light, mathematical calculations of undoubted accuracy, and a chain of reasoning 

 which does not admit of dispute, have led. ' Modern optical inquiries have dis- 

 closed,' observes Sir John Herschel, ' that every point of a medium through which 

 a ray of light passes is affected with a succession of periodical movements, regularly 

 recurring at equal intervals, no less than five hundred millions of millions of times 

 in a single second ! that it is by such movements, communicated to the nerves of 

 our eyes, that we see — nay more, that it is the difference in the frequency of their 

 recurrence which affects us with the sense of the diversity of colour ; that, for 

 instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, our eyes are affected four hundred 

 and eighty-two millions of millions of times ; of yellowness, five hundred and 

 forty-two millions of millions of times ; and of violet, seven hundred and seven 

 millions of millions of times per second.' 



" Were it not that other parts of the works of the great Creator clearly prove 

 that magnitude and number present no limits to his power — that the vast and the 

 minute are equally the object of his attention, we should be almost tempted to 

 throw aside the sublime truths of mathematical science as the wild reveries of a 

 heated imagination ; but every branch of science leads to the same conclusions, 

 overwhelming as they are to the powers of the human intellect, and every mode of 

 investigation teaches the same results ; and while we make the vain attempt to 

 conceive the wonders of creation, we can only pause and admire when the faint 

 glimmering perception, which alone we are able to obtain, arises in our minds. 

 Let us for a moment endeavour to realize to our view the wonderful velocity of 

 these vibrations — five hundred millions of millions of times in a second — and then 

 consider the sublime fiat of the Almighty Creator calling this undulatory motion 

 of inconceivable rapidity into existence — " Let there be light.'''* 



Upon the subject of Natural History it was observed — '^ The especial object 

 of Botany is, as you are aware, the investigation of the phenomena presented by 

 the vegetable kingdom; — that of Zoology, the study of the phenomena presented 

 by the animal kingdom. The one principle which pervades both these divisions of 

 the works of the Divine Creator is life. But what that principle is, in what it con- 

 sists, how it acts in the regulation of the bodies, and of the parts of the bodies in 

 which it exists, we are utterly unable to say. Endowed with this principle, the most 

 minute and simple vesicles of animal or vegetable existence, as well as the most 

 elaborate of their forms, for a time, at least, and within certain limits, exert a 

 controul over those powerful forces by which the worlds above us roll in their vast 

 orbits, and the whole system of the universe is kept in its place. The powdery 

 lichen which incrusts the surface of the rock, and the loftiest oak or pine of the 

 forest, the monad of which five hundred millions may be crowded into the space of 

 one cubic inch, and the majestic elephant ; yes ! and the noble form of man 

 himself, alike owe their developement and their existence to the implantation of 

 this mysterious principle ; for, deprived of life, they die and moulder into dust, 

 from that moment becoming subject only to the powers which regulate inert 

 matter. 



" Examine this principle in some of the more simple forms of existence, and you 

 would think it could scarcely be destroyed, for it will last for ages dormant in the 

 seeds of many of the vegetable tribes and some of the inferior animals, the polype 

 for instance, may be maimed and divided almost indefinitely, and the maimed parts 

 will be reproduced, and the divided parts will each form a perfect animal— further, 

 some of the aquatic animalcula, which inhabit gutters, and other places where 



