INTRODUCTION. 



THE True is the Beautiful. Whenever this becomes 

 evident to our senses, its influences are of a soul- 

 elevating character. The beautiful, whether it is per- 

 ceived in the external forms of matter, associated in the 

 harmonies of light and colour, appreciated in the 

 modulations of sweet sounds, or mingled with those 

 influences which are, as the inner life of creation, ever 

 appealing to the soul through the vesture which covers 

 all things, is the natural theme of the poet, and the 

 chosen study of the philosopher. 



But, it will be asked, where is the relation between 

 the stern labours of science and the ethereal system 

 which constitutes poetry ? The fumes of the laboratory, 

 its alkalies and acids, the mechanical appliances of the 

 observatory, its specula and its lenses, do not appear 

 fitted for a place in the painted bowers of the Muses. 

 But, from the labours of the chemist in his cell, from 

 the multitudinous observations of the astronomer on his 

 tower, spring truths which the philosopher employs to 

 interpret nature's mysteries, and which give to the soul 

 of the poet those realities to which he aspires in his high 

 imaginings. 



Science solicits from the material world, by the 

 persuasion of inductive search, a development of its 

 elementary principles, and of the laws which these obey. 

 Philosophy strives to apply the discovered facts to the 



