PLEASURES CONNECTED WITH SCIENCE. 



5! 



and prevents our being crushed to pieces that 

 the same cause prevents our habitations from 

 falling upon us and crushing us to death, without 

 which our glass windows would be shattered to 

 atoms, and our most stately edifices tumbled into 

 ruins ! that this atmosphere is at the same time 

 performing an immense variety of operations in 

 Naturs and Art insinuating itself into the pores 

 and sap-vessels of plants and flowers produc 

 ing respiration in all living beings, and support 

 ing all the processes of life and vegetation 

 throughout the animal and vegetable creation 

 that its pressure produces the process of what is 

 called suction and cupping causes snails and pe 

 riwinkles to adhere to the rocks on which they are 

 found gives effect to the adhesion of bodies by 

 means of mortar and cements raises water in 

 our forcing-pumps and fire-engines supports the 

 quicksilver in our barometers prevents the 

 water of our seas and rivers from boiling and 

 evaporating into steam and promotes the ac 

 tion of our steam-engines while raising water 

 from deep pits, and while propelling vessels 

 along seas and rivers ! 



In the next place, science contributes to the 

 gratification of the human mind by enabling us 

 to trace, in many objects and operations, surpris 

 ing resemblances, where we should least of all 

 have, expected them. Who could, at first sight, 

 imagine, that the process of breathing is a spe 

 cies of combustion, or burning that the dia 

 mond is nothing else than carbon in a crystal 

 lized state, and differs only in a very slight 

 degree from a piece of charcoal- -that water is 

 a compound of two invisible airs or gases, and 

 that one of these ingredients is the principle of 

 flame ! that the air which produces suffocation 

 and death in coal-mines and subterraneous 

 grottos, is the same substance which gives 

 briskness to ale, beer, and soda water, and the 

 acid flavour to many mineral springs that the 

 air we breathe is composed of the same ingre 

 dients and nearly in the same proportions as 

 nitric acid or aqua fortis, which can dissolve al 

 most all the metals, and a single draught of 

 which would instantly destroy the human frame 

 that the colour of white is a mixture or com 

 pound of all the other colours, red, orange, yel 

 low, green, blue, indigo, and violet, and conse 

 quently, that the white light of the sun produces 

 all that diversity of colouring which adorns the 

 face of nature that the same principle which 

 causes our fires to burn, forms acids, produces 

 the rust of metals, and promotes the growth of 

 plants by night that plants breathe and perspire 

 as well as animals that carbonic acid gas, or 

 fixed air, is the product both of vegetation, of 

 burning, of fermentation and of breathing that 

 it remains indestructible by age, and, in all its 

 diversified combinations, still preserves its iden 

 tity that the air which burns in our street-lamps 

 and illuminates our shops and manufactories, is 



the same which causes a balloon to rise above 

 the clouds, and likewise extinguishes flame when 

 it is immersed in a body of this gas that the 

 leaves of vegetables which rot upon the ground 

 arid appear to be lost for ever, are converted by 

 the oxygen of the atmosphere into carbonic acid 

 gas, and this very same carbon is, in process of 

 time, absorbed by a new race of vegetables, 

 which it clothes with a new foliage, and again 

 renews the face of nature and that the same 

 principle which causes the sensation of heat is 

 the cause of fluidity, expands bodies in every 

 direction, enters into every operation in nature, 

 flies from the sun at the rate of 195,000 miles in 

 a second of time, and, by its powerful influence, 

 prevents the whole matter of the universe from 

 being converted into a solid mass ! 



What, then, can be more delightful, to a being 

 furnished with such powers as man, than to trace 

 the secret machinery by which the God of nature 

 accomplishes his designs in the visible world, and 

 displays his infinite power and intelligence to 

 enter into the hidden springs of Nature s opera 

 tions, to follow her through all her winding re 

 cesses, and to perceive, from what simple prin 

 ciples and causes the most sublime and diver 

 sified phenomena are produced ! It is with this 

 view that the Almighty hath set before us his 

 wondrous works, not to be overlooked, or beheld 

 with a &quot; brute unconscious gaze,&quot; but to be in 

 vestigated, in order that they may be admired, 

 and that in such investigations we may enjoy a 

 sacred pleasure in contemplating the results of 

 his Wisdom and Intelligence. 



In the third place, science contributes to our 

 enjoyment by the grand and sublime objects she 

 presents before us. In consequence of the inves 

 tigations which have been made to determine the 

 distances and magnitudes of the heavenly bodies, 

 objects of magnificence and grandeur are now 

 presented to the view of the enlightened mind of 

 which former ages could form no conception. 

 These objects are magnificent in respect of mag 

 nitude, of motion, of the vast spaces which inter 

 vene between them, and of the noble purposes for 

 which they are destined. 



What a sublime idea, for example, is presented 

 to the view by such an object as the planet Jupi 

 ter, a globe fourteen hundred times larger than 

 the world in which we dwell, and whose surface 

 would contain a population a hundred times more 

 numerous than all the inhabitants that have ex 

 isted on our globe since the creation ! And how 

 is the sublimity of such an idea augmented when 

 we consider, that this immense body is revolving 

 round its axis at the rate of twenty-eight thou 

 sand miles in an hour, and is flying, at the same 

 time, through the regions of space, twenty-nine 

 thousand miles every hour, carrying along wilh 

 it four moons, each of them larger than the earth, 

 during its whole course round the centre of its 

 motion ! And if t.hi olanet, which appears only 



