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 



