310 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



in a mere game of intellectual gymnastics, such as the 

 ancients delighted in, but tends to the mastery of Nature. 

 This gradual conquest of the external world, and the 

 consciousness of augmented strength which accompanies 

 it, render the study of Physics as delightful as it is 

 important. 



With regard to the effect on the imagination, certain 

 it is that the cool results of physical induction furnish 

 conceptions which transcend the most daring flights of 

 that faculty. Take for example the idea of an all-per- 

 vading ether which transmits a tingle, so to speak, to the 

 finger ends of the universe every time a street lamp is 

 lighted. The invisible billows of this ether can be meas- 

 ured with the same ease and certainty as that with which 

 an engineer measures a base and two angles, and from 

 these finds the distance across the Thames. Now, it is 

 to be confessed that there may be just as little poetry in 

 the measurement of an ethereal undulation as in that of 

 the river; for the intellect, during the acts of measurement 

 and calculation, destroys those notions of size which ap- 

 peal to the poetic sense. It is a mistake to suppose, with 

 Dr. Young, that 



An undevout astronomer is mad; 



there being no necessary connection between a devout 

 state of mind and the observations and calculations of 

 a practical astronomer. It is not until the man withdraws 

 from his calculation, as a painter from his work, and thus 

 realizes the great idea on which he has been engaged, that 

 imagination and wonder are excited. There is, I admit, 

 a possible danger here. If the arithmetical processes of 

 science be too exclusively pursued, they may impair the 



