i.J ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 15 



produces weight is coextensive with the universe, — in 

 short, to the theory of universal gravitation and endless 

 force. While learning how to handle gases led to the 

 discovery of oxygen, and to modern chemistry, and to 

 the notion of the indestructibility of matter. 



Again, what simpler, or more absolutely practical, 

 than the attempt to keep the axle of a wheel from 

 heating when the wheel turns round very fast? How 

 useful for carters and gig drivers to know something 

 about this ; and how good were it, if airy ingenious 

 person would find out the cause of such phcenomena, 

 and thence educe a general remedy for them. Such 

 an ingenious person was Count Eumford ; and he and 

 his successors have landed us in the theory of the per- 

 sistence, or indestructibility, of force. And in the in- 

 finitely minute, as in the infinitely great, the seekers 

 after natural knowledge, of the kinds called physical and 

 chemical, have everywhere found a definite order and 

 succession of events which seem never to be infringed. 



And how has it fared with "Physick'' and Anatomy 7 ? 

 Have the anatomist, the physiologist, or the physician, 

 whose business it has been to devote themselves assi- 

 duously to that eminently practical and direct end, the 

 alleviation of the sufferings of mankind, — have they 

 been able to confine their vision more absolutely to the 

 strictly useful ? I fear they are worst offenders of all. 

 For if the astronomer has set before us the infinite 

 magnitude of space, and the practical eternity of the 

 duration of the universe; if the physical and chemical 

 philosophers have demonstrated the infinite minuteness 

 of its constituent parts, and the practical eternity of 

 matter and of force ; and if both have alike proclaimed 

 the universality of a definite and prcdicable order and 

 succession of events, the workers in biology have not 

 only accepted all these, but have added more startling 



