Meeting of British Association. 393 



stronger impulse and more systematic direction to scientific 

 enquiry, — to promote the intercourse of those who cultivate 

 Science in different parts of the empire, with one another and 

 with foreign philosophers, — and to obtain a more general attention 

 to the objects of Science, and a removal of any disadvantages of a 

 public kind which impede its progress." 



ORJECT AND DUTY OF SCIENCE. 



To arrange and classify that universe of knowledge becomes 

 therefore the first, and perhaps the most important, object and 

 duty of Science. It is only when brought into a system, by 

 separating the incongruous and combining those elements in which 

 we have been enabled to discover the internal connexion which the 

 Almighty has implanted in them, that we can hope to grapple 

 with the boundlessness of His creation, and with the laws which 

 govern both mind and matter. 



The operation of Science then has been, systematically to divide 

 human knowledge, and raise, as it were, the separate groups of 

 subjects for scientific consideration, into different and distinct 

 sciences. The tendency to create new sciences is peculiarly ap- 

 parent in our present age, and is perhaps inseperable from so rapid 

 a progress as we have seen in our days ; for the acquaintance with 

 and mastering of distinct branches of knowledge enables the 

 eye, from the newly gained points of sight, to see the new ramifi- 

 cations into which they divide themselves in strict consecutiveness 

 and with logical necessity. But in thus gaining new centres of 

 light, from which to direct our researches, and new and powerful 

 means of adding to its ever-increasing treasures, Science approaches 

 no nearer to the limits of its range,, although travelling further 

 and further from its original point of departure. For God's \torld 

 is infinite; and the boundlessness of the universe, whose confines 

 appear ever to retreat before our finite minds, strikes us no less 

 with awe when, prying into the starry crowd of heaven, we find 

 new worlds revealed to us by every increase in the power of the 

 telescope, than when the microscope discloses to us in a drop of 

 water or an atom of dust, new worlds of life and animation, or the 

 remains of such as have passed away. 



From amongst the political sciences it has been attempted in 

 modern times to detach one which admits of being severed from 

 individual political opinions, and of being reduced to abstract laws 

 derived from well authenticated facts. I mean Political Economy, 



