xxx INTRODUCTION. 



guess the utility and beauty of study than the hardships of 

 existence. The next prospect pictures more advanced know- 

 ledge the knowledge acquired during the years of growth 

 up to manhood, and necessary to trace through various 

 paths your line of conduct in life. The third prospect pictures 

 the fathomless knowledge which science, art, and literature 

 strive to expound, and of which, in order to know the world 

 we live in, we all should try to get a glimpse, even if we are 

 not destined to become experts or discoverers. 



And in the fanciful picture just sketched out you have 

 seen the terrestrial world only. If you now look up in the 

 heavens you see the sun ; night comes, you behold the moon 

 and the stars another world is revealed to you more in- 

 comprehensible and sublime, if possible, than the other, for 

 you are facing infinite space, and that is " powdered with 

 suns." This view has awakened deep thoughts. You wonder 

 how these orbs move, and light, and warm us ; and remember- 

 ing the storms you have witnessed before, you wonder how 

 the wind blows, the rain falls, the thunder roars, the lightning 

 kills, the river swells, the ocean rolls. The eyes have dis- 

 covered marvels to you, and now your mind wants to under- 

 stand them. Science then steps on the scene, and explains to 

 you the working of these wonders. And when science has un- 

 ravelled to you some of the secrets of nature, you want to know 

 by what process and by what men these secrets of nature 

 have become known. Such an inquiry is just as full of interest 

 as the history of humanity itself, of which it forms, in a sense, 

 the most vital element ; but it is more than interesting : it 

 leads to moral results you were far from conceiving. For 

 the more we realise the vastness of human knowledge, the 



