372 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
of palpable good to its inhabitants. It is to these 
sciences, and to these only, that our present ob- 
servations relate. Who, then, that reflects upon 
the original intentions by which the founders of our 
universities were actuated, — who will maintain 
that the education of the higher classes is to be 
confined to the same studies in the nineteenth 
century, as-‘were taught in the seventeenth? that 
many of the most intellectual, as well as the most 
elegant branches of physical science should be 
excluded from the regular course of university 
education, or, if they are permitted to be taught, 
that the option of learning them should be left to 
the pleasure of the students themselves, without 
any enforcement arising from the rules of their 
college,—any inducement held out to stimulate their 
exertion, or any to reward their acquirement? The 
usual reply to these interrogations is, that an ac- 
quaintance with the physical sciences formed no 
part of the original institution of our universities, 
and, therefore, to introduce them as secondary 
objects of study would be in direct defiance of 
their charter. But this objection has been already 
anticipated; and if another answer is required, it 
may be found in the close connection between na- 
tural religion, which is so strongly elucidated by the 
physical sciences, and that revealed religion, which 
it is the business of our universities to uphold and 
expound. 
(255.) This connection of the twofold causes of our 
homage to the Great Creator, has been so admirably 
illustrated by the talent and eloquence of one of the 
brightest ornaments to science now among us, that 
