190 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



features. From the moment laws became demonstrated, not 

 only was retrogression impossible, but progress must of 

 necessity grow apace. And this was obviously the case in 

 many directions, as we have seen. One material consequence 

 ensued, and that was the immense benefits derived from 

 chemical advancement in all industries, and which promoted 

 human welfare. Another consequence scientific this was 

 doubly beneficial : additional evidence was afforded of the 

 supremacy of law throughout a wide range of the physical 

 world ; next, additional evidence was furnished of the interac- 

 tion of one science upon another, and the necessity of such 

 interaction was made more plain than ever, since chemistry 

 strongly assisted medicine, physiology, geology, and, as we 

 shall see, terrestrial and celestial physics. The third con- 

 sequence was mainly philosophical, and, as such, of greater 

 significance if possible than in other respects, since chemical 

 knowledge throws a luminous ray upon the origin of the 

 Cosmos. For, if an electric current or spark is sufficient, 

 not to decompose substances simply, but also to form 

 new compounds, as we have seen it to be the case in 

 Cavendish's composition of water out of two simple ele- 

 ments, then it may be reasonably inferred that many com- 

 pound substances were in the origin of things formed by a 

 similar process of chemical action ; and if it be so it is not 

 unreasonable to infer also that the life cell, that primordial 

 spark of life out of which all life was evolved, may have 

 been produced by the action of forces, at a stage when 

 conditions of pressure, heat, matter, admitted of such a 

 process. This, however, is a hypothesis unsubstantiated 

 altogether as yet. But it is as well to take note of one 

 of the results of chemical research upon human thought. 



We perceive then what immense strides have been made 

 in this branch of science; how vastly they have extended 

 the area of knowledge, and how small, relatively, had been 

 the advance before the modern era, despite admirable efforts.. 

 These efforts had not been quite fruitless, and we owe much 

 to those who made them. A Giaber, a Rhazes, a Paracelsus, 

 a Van Helmont, are great men still we inherited their modes 

 of inquiry and it would be sheer ingratitude or want of 



