PRACTICAL LESSONS IN SCIENCE. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. 



SCIENCE is scarcely more than a century old. In fact the 

 investigations, discoveries and generalizations, which have 

 given science a standing before the intellectual world, were for 

 the most part made within the present century. The growth 

 and development of that great body of systematic knowledge, 

 which we call science, has been interesting from many points of 

 view. The scientific investigator, penetratiDg the hidden realms 

 of nature, has set forth new ideas. These ideas excited opposi- 

 tion, so that there has been a constant conflict between the new 

 and the old, between the conservative and the progressive. 

 Every advancement in science has been opposed by those who 

 thought its tendencies were atheistic, leading toward the sub- 

 version of religion and the church; by those who considered the 

 reasoning and conclusions of science unphilosophical ; by those 

 who considered the processes and results unpractical, and by 

 those who were willing to leave well enough alone, being hostile 

 to every change. Science has been looked upon with distrust by 

 the learned professions, has been sneered at by practical men, 

 and shunned as something uncanny by the illiterate. 



The wide dissemination of information, the growth of intelli- 

 gence, the continued stability of the essentials of religion, the 

 immense economical value of many of the results of scientific 

 investigation and discovery, have happily dispelled nearly every 

 form of distrust and opposition. And the unanimity of opinion 

 among scientific men, on all the important conclusions and gen- 



