55 Sfag Sermons, (Essrms, antr gcfeietos. [iv. 



At otlier times, and in other places, I have endeavoured 

 to state the higher and more abstract arguments, by 

 which the study of physical science may be shown 

 to be indispensable to the complete training of the 

 human mind ; but I do not wish it to be supposed 

 that, because I happen to be devoted to more or less 

 abstract and "unpractical" pursuits, I am insensible 

 to the weight which ought to be attached to that which 

 has been said to be the English conception of Paradise 

 >namely, "getting on." I look upon it, that "getting 

 on" is a very important matter indeed. I do not 

 mean merely for the sake of the coarse and tangible 

 results of success, but because humanity is so con- 

 stituted that a vast number of us would never be 

 impelled to those stretches of exertion which make 

 us wiser and more capable men, if it were not for the 

 absolute necessity of putting on our faculties all the 

 strain they will bear, for the purpose of " getting on" 

 in the most practical sense. 



Now the value of a knowledge of physical science 

 as a means of getting on, is indubitable. There are 

 hardly any of our trades, except the merely huckstering 

 ones, in which some knowledge of science may not 

 be directly profitable to the pursuer of that occupation. 

 As industry attains higher stages of its development, 

 as its processes become more complicated and refined, 

 and competition more keen, the sciences are dragged 

 in, one by one, to take their share in the fray ; and 

 he who can best avail himself of their help is the man 

 who will come out uppermost in that struggle for exist- 

 ence, which goes on as fiercely beneath the smooth 

 surface of modern society, as among the wild inhabit- 

 ants of the woods. 



IBut, in addition to the bearing of science on ordinary 

 practical life, let me direct your attention to its immense 



