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PHYSICAL SCIENCE 



in a position to use the methods and accumu- 

 lated experience of another science, a period of 

 striking discoveries may confidently be antici- 

 pated. Thus it was that Newton applied to 

 the phenomena of the heavens the mechanical 

 knowledge of previous ages, and his law of 

 gravity revealed a harmony of the spheres. 

 When it was found that the generalisations of 

 thermodynamics and of electrical science could 

 be used in chemical problems, a new world 

 opened before the investigator. So it is with 

 the transfer of physical methods and data to the 

 problems of astro-physics. The first-fruits of 

 this harvest of knowledge have already proved 

 of momentous import, and in the combination of 

 physics and astronomy the present labourers 

 and those that come after them may hope to 

 find one of the most fertile unions in the whole 

 realm of Natural Philosophy. 



