GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 369 



reports, with a want of respect for science. I regret if I have 

 given unwittingly it must have been any grounds for such a 

 charge. Nothing can be more foreign from the truth. Science, 

 however small my claims to any affinity with her, I love and 

 honor. But mere theory I distrust ; self-conceit, which is often 

 harmless, amuses me ; unfounded pretensions I hold at their true 

 value ; and low and interested quackery I despise. What is 

 science ? Not merely the knowledge of books ; not merely a fa 

 miliarity with the technical rules of any art; not mere hypothesis 

 and conjecture, however subtle and profound. But the observa 

 tion and the accumulation of facts ; the following them out in 

 all their relations and bearings ; and the tracing, as far as human 

 sagacity can go, all the circumstances and influences, of which 

 they appear to follow as the necessary consequences and results. 

 This is the work of mind wherever mind is found. This pro 

 ficiency will be most essentially assisted by the knowledge of 

 facts already established and ascertained ; by artificial processes 

 and appliances already invented and familiar to the learned. But 

 let us not consider these investigations as the exclusive business 

 and monopoly of the schools. What I want to see is the uni 

 versal mind awake. I want that men should every where 

 be induced to open their minds to the beautiful and sublime 

 creation, in the centre of which God has placed them, and seek 

 to understand more of it and of themselves. I want that the 

 man who follows the plough, when he opens the bosom of the 

 bountiful and wonder-working earth, should read lessons of 

 divine wisdom written upon its teeming furrows. I want the 

 sower when he scatters his quickening seed, and sees those 

 diminutive grains which he throws about him rising from the 

 earth in forms of matchless beauty, gay with flowers, and at last 

 rich in fruits, and pouring into his lap, as the compensation of 

 his toil, the bread which is to sustain and make life happy, hum 

 bly but importunately to inquire, How is this miracle effected? 

 I want the farmer, when he sees his reeking heap of refuse, now 

 offensive and loathsome to the sense, when cast upon the earth, 

 returning to bless him in the richest products of health, and 

 comfort, and life, to follow out, as far as his sagacity can explore, 

 these subtle and marvellous operations of a beneficent providence. 

 I want men should work with their minds as well as their bodies ; 

 and I wish that the penalties of indolence and neglect, in the 



