100 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



the springs and jewelled pivots of the works within, those 

 qualities and powers, in short, which enable the watch to 

 perform accurately its work as a keeper of time. With re- 

 gard to the knowledge of such a watch he would be a mere 

 ignoramus who would content himself with outward inspec- 

 tion. I do not wish to say one severe word here to-day, 

 but I fear that many of those who are very loud in their 

 praise of the works of the Lord know them only in this out- 

 side and superficial way. It is the inner works of the uni- 

 ' verse which science reverently uncovers ; it is the study of 

 these that she recommends as a discipline worthy of all 

 acceptation. 



The ultimate problem of physics is to reduce matter by 

 analysis to its lowest condition of divisibility, and force to 

 its simplest manifestations, and then by synthesis to con- 

 struct from these elements the world as it stands. We are 

 still a long way from the final solution of this problem ; 

 and when the solution comes, it will be one more of spir- 

 itual insight than of actual observation. But though we 

 are still a long way from this complete intellectual mastery 

 of Nature, we have conquered vast regions of it, have 

 learned their polities and the play of their powers. We 

 live upon a ball of matter eight thousand miles in diameter, 

 swathed by an atmosphere of unknown height. This ball 

 has been molten by heat, chilled to a solid, and sculptured 

 by water ; it is made up of substances possessing distinctive 

 properties and modes of action, properties which have an 

 immediate bearing upon the continuance of man in health, 

 and on his recovery from disease, on which moreover de- 

 pend all the arts of industrial life. These properties and 

 modes of action offer problems to the intellect, some profit- 

 able to the child, and others sufficient to tax the highest 

 powers of the philosopher. Our native sphere turns on its 

 axis and revolves in space. It is one of a band which do 

 the same. It is illuminated by a sun which, though nearly 



