450 PROCEEDINGS OF 



until they shall have ruached the eponh of millennial glory so clearly announced in 

 the scriptures of trutli. The age in which we live is marked by wonderful ad- 

 vances in the physical sciences. This is emphatically the age of progress, and 

 there is now no stationary period in any branch of pliysics. The mystic epoch also 

 has disappeared, and alchemy has yielded to clicmistry, astrology to astronomy, 

 and necromancy or magic to the realities of natural philosophy. The only branch 

 which seoms to go back to the mystic sciences is animal magnetism, in regard to 

 which I shall pronounce no judgment. Tlio present age deals with facts ; from 

 facts we ascend to theories, and linally to universal laws. Wc have many books 

 on physics; but why might wo not have charts, to bo suspended as maps in our 

 rooms, where in each branch might be noted the facts in their chronological order, 

 the theories and fiual laws, with the names of tiie great discoverers? If this would 

 be too extensive, as regards all ages and countries, it might bo confined to our own, 

 and gratify the pride and stimulate the zeal of the nation. 



Among the most valuable results of inductive science, is the strong additional 

 evidence obtained in favor of the great and glorious truths of the christian religion. 

 The fabulous zodiac, wliich carried back the observations of astronomers to a pe- 

 riod beyond the mosaic account of the creation of man, has disaopeared before iho 

 light of modern astronomy. The myriads of bones of giant animals, which could 

 only have lived and found subsistence in a tropical, or at least a temperate climate, 

 now scattered in profusion in Northern Siberia, along the verge of the arctic circle, 

 attest the effects and reality of a general deluge. The pyramids of Egypt, wliich 

 had remained dumb for thousands of years, have been made to speak ; and so far 

 as their hieroglyphics have found a voice, it proclaims many of the facts recorded 

 in the sacred history. Whilst the advance of science lias contributed so much to 

 our happiness and comfort here, has it no connection with our eternal destiny ? Ig 

 all our knowledge buried in the grave ? and does the untutored savage start in the 

 next world at the same point with Sir Isaac jNewton, in the race towards the goal 

 of infinite knowledge — that point, towards which, like the asymptotesof the hyper- 

 bolic curve, we shall forever approximate but never attain ? Does knowledge die 

 with the physical frame; or does it constitute a part of that soul whose phenomena 

 after death wc can no longer observe, but which, as an essence of the groat Cre- 

 ator, shall bo as eternal as his own existence ? 



And now, having detained you too long in this most imperfect sketch of some of 

 the improvements and discoveries of our countrymen in physics, let me close by 

 declaring, that if the men of science of the Union will come forward, and unite 

 with tho people in sustaining and advancing the National Institute, they will 

 make it worthy of tho greatest and freest nation of the world, and contribute 

 much towards placing our own beloved country as far above all others on the roll 

 of knowledge as it now transcends all its contemporaries and predecessors in a go- 

 vernment administered by and for the benefit of tho whole people. 



