ELEVATING CHARACTER OF RESEARCH. 5 



it is that kind of knowledge which admits of the highest 

 proof, and as it spreads through the minds of men, so 

 uniformity of belief extends, and the sphere of strife 

 between man and man is diminished. In this way origi- 

 nal scientific research is continually purifying all our 

 beliefs, and gradually leading us toward a true idea of 

 the Creator, and to a pure religion in which all men will 

 think alike. Knowledge of science enables us to under- 

 stand more intelligently, and therefore to appreciate more 

 justly and truthfully, the mode of action of Almighty 

 control, even in the minutiae of our actions, and therefore 

 also makes our faith less blind and less erring. 



Science, more than anything else, causes us to be obe- 

 dient to law. It is recognition of law which distinguishes 

 science from superstition, intelligent men from savages. 

 Scientific research is a true vineyard, in which a man may 

 gather not merely the uncertain doctrinal opinions of his 

 erring fellow-men, but the demonstrable truths of nature, 

 or as Oersted calls them, ' the thoughts of Grod.' The 

 occupation of scientific discovery, also, not only fills a 

 man's mind with the most certain of beliefs, viz., those 

 which are verifiable, but also enables him to approach 

 more closely than by any other means the very source of 

 truth itself, by exhibiting to him the processes by means 

 of which the secrets of the universe are penetrated. If 

 one man is more competent than another to perceive the 

 nature of the great source of truth, or to claim to be a 

 high priest of truth bearing good tidings to mankind, it is 

 lie to whom new truth is first disclosed, and through whom 

 it is vouchsafed to us. 



Scientific research is a great indirect regulator of 

 morality. And indeed it might be proved that the judicial 

 determination of what is right and good, is effected by 

 precisely the same mode of mental action as that which 



