AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS. 101 



a hundred millions of miles distant, can be brought virtually 

 into our closets and there subjected to examination. It 

 has its winds and clouds, its rain and frost, its light, heat, 

 sound, electricity, and magnetism. And it has its vast 

 kingdoms of animals and vegetables. To a most amazing 

 extent the human mind has conquered these things, and 

 revealed the logic which runs through them. Were they 

 facts only, without logical relationship, science might, as a 

 means of discipline, suffer in comparison with language. 

 But the whole body of phenomena is instinct with law ; 

 the facts are hung on principles, and the value of physical 

 science as a means of discipline consists in the motion of 

 the intellect, both inductively and deductively, along the 

 lines of laAV marked out by phenomena. As regards that 

 discipline to which I have already referred as derivable 

 from the study of languages — that, and more, are involved 

 in the study of physical science. Indeed, I believe it would 

 be possible so to limit and arrange the study of a portion 

 of physics as to render the mental exercise involved in it 

 almost qualitatively the same as that involved in the un- 

 ravelling of a language. 



I have thus far limited myself to the purely intellectual 

 side of this question. But man is not all intellect. If he 

 were so, science would, I believe, be his proper nutr'~nent. 

 But he feels as well as thinks ; he is receptive of lae sub- 

 lime and the beautiful as well as of the true. Indeed, I be- 

 lieve that even the intellectual action of a complete man is, 

 consciously or unconsciously, sustained by an under-current 

 of the emotions. It is vain, I think, to attempt to separate 

 moral and emotional nature from intellectual nature. Let 

 a man but observe himself, and he will, if I mistake not, 

 find that in nine cases out of ten, moral or immoral consid- 

 erations, as the case may be, are the motive force which 

 pushes his intellect into action. The reading of the works 

 of two men, neither of them imbued with the spirit of 



