u\ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. \\ 



years back, as be troubled with the endless malady of 

 thought which now infests us all, for such reward. But 

 I venture to say that such views are contrary alike to 

 reason and to fact. Those who discourse in such fashion 

 seem to me to be so intent upon trying to see what is 

 above Nature, or what is behind her, that they are blind 

 to what stares them in the face, in her. 



I should not venture to speak thus strongly if my 

 justification were not to be found in the simplest and 

 most obvious facts, — if it needed more than an appeal 

 to the most notorious truths to justify my assertion, that 

 the improvement of natural knowledge, whatever direc- 

 tion it has taken, and however low the aims of those 

 who may have commenced it — has not only conferred 

 practical benefits on men, but, in so doing, has effected 

 a revolution in their conceptions of the universe and of 

 themselves, and has profoundly altered their modes of 

 thinking and their views of right and wrong. I say 

 that natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants, 

 has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual 

 cravings. I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to 

 ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover 

 those of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new 

 morality. 



Let us take these points separately ; and, first, what 

 great ideas has natural knowledge introduced into men s 

 minds ? 



I cannot but think that the foundations of all natural 

 knowledge were laid when the reason of man first came 

 face to face [with the facts of Nature : when the savage 

 first learned that the fingers of one hand are fewer than 

 those of both ; that it is shorter to cross a stream than 

 to head it ; that a stone stops where it is unless it be 

 moved, and that it drops from the hand which lets it go ; 



