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architecture of the heavens, but are deeply interested in some contemptible con- 

 troversy about the intrigues of Mary Queen of Scotts ; are learnedly critical 

 over a Greek ode, and pass by, without a glance, that grand epic written by the 

 finger of God upon the strata of the earth !" 



And who can look out on the ocean through Maury's Physical Geography of 

 the Sea, or contemplate, through the microscope, that infinitude of life which 

 lies beyond the reach of unaided vision, but which fills up the depths of the ocean 

 with active and joyful existences, or can follow its unceasing evaporations in 

 their varied forms as they pass over the dry lands, enriching and beautifying 

 them with descending rains, and not perceive the grandeur of the Psalmist's ex- 

 clamation, "The sea is His, and He made it?" Shall the pulpit longer con- 

 tinue in ignorance of science, as if the God of nature and of revelation were of 

 antagonistical attributes ? Does a study of polemical theology more enlarge 

 human sympathies than a knowledge of the wisdom and love of the Creator, as 

 seen in his works? 



To the lawyer, a knowledge of the sciences is still more essential. For what 

 better mental discipline to him than the knowledge of the steps adopted to discover 

 and unfold scientific truth ? It is as valuable to him to determine the differences 

 between error and truth, or crime and innocence, in human conduct. It not only 

 disciplines his perceptive faculties in seeing the relation of one fact to another, 

 but strengthens his judgment in determining the consequences of that relation. 

 As the study of natural laws demands complete investigation, surely the power 

 to make it must be, to the legal mind, one of its strongest acquisitions ; for it 

 can search into the elements of human conduct, into motives as developed by acts; 

 it can trace the secret steps in the commission of crime through the motive. The 

 same mental discipline is as essential in such investigations as to the naturalist who 

 deduces the structure and habits of a fish, that now has no other existence than 

 a fossil scale. The reasoning processes are the same in determining moral rela- 

 tions as in the physical ; for both perceive and determine the fitness of things. 

 The logic in the demonstration of a moral truth, or a legal proposition, or a geo- 

 metrical problem is the same as used in determining an extinct animal from a 

 single fossil remain. 



But the study of science adorns the mind with the noblest illustrations a law- 

 yer could use to develop or strengthen his arguments. For as much above as 

 are the laws of nature those of man, so much loftier are they as means of com- 

 parison. Just as the beau-ideal of the orator, which Cicero had always before 

 him, aided him to attain his own greatness in oratory, because of its superiority 

 to himself as an orator. 



The bar and the pulpit, in their want of illustrations and comparisons drawn 

 from the sciences, show that neglect of their study which has so long existed in 

 our educational institutions. This neglect the sciences are now avenging; for, 

 in their recent great development, they have lessened the supremacy of both 

 the lawyer and the preacher, especially in social influences, by exhibiting their 

 ignorance of subjects the most attractive and instructive in social intercourse. 

 The educational acquirements of both are becoming fossilized : they are dead, 

 not living, as are those of the man of science. 



"At present," says the author of Friends in Council, "many a man who is 

 versed in Greek metre, and afterwards full of law reports, is childishly ignorant 

 of nature. Let him walk with an intelligent child for a morning, and the child 

 will ask him a hundred questions about sun, moon, stars, plants, birds, building, 

 farming, and the like, to which he can give very sorry answers, if any ; or, at 

 the best, he has but a second-hand acquaintance with nature. Man's conceits 

 are his main knowledge. Whereas, if he had any pursuit connected with nature, 

 all nature is in harmony with it, and is brought into his presence by it." 



If, then, the preacher and the lawyer should not be ignorant of the sciences, and 



