COMMON KNOWLEDGE AND SCIENCE. 3 



knowledge is rather brought than sought ; and such 

 ratiocination is little more than the working of a blind 

 intellectual instinct. 



It is only when the mind passes beyond this condition 

 that it begins to evolve science. When simple curiosity 

 passes into the love of knowledge as such, and the 

 gratification of the aesthetic sense of the beauty of com- 

 pleteness and accuracy seems more desirable than the 

 easy indolence of ignorance ; when the finduig out of 

 the causes of things becomes a source of jo}^, and he 

 is counted happy who is successful in the search ; common 

 knowledge of nature passes into what our forefathers 

 called Natural History, from whence there is but a step 

 to that w^hich used to be termed Natural Philosophy, and 

 now passes by the name of Physical Science. 



In this final stage of knowledge, the phenomena of 

 nature are regarded as one continuous series of causes 

 and effects ; and the ultimate object of science is to trace 

 out that series, from the term which is nearest to us, to 

 that which is at the furthest limit accessible to our means 

 of investigation. 



The course of nature as it is, as it has been^ and as it 

 will be, is the object of scientific inquiry ; whatever lies 

 bej'Ond, above, or below this, is outside science. But 

 the philosopher need not despair at the limitation of his 

 field of labour : in relation to the human mind Nature is 

 boundless ; and, though nowhere inaccessible, she is 

 everywhere unfathomable. 



