CHAP. VI.] UNDERGRADUATE OF TRINITY. 159 



the progress is natural. But the subject is too high. I 

 will not, however, stop short, but proceed to Intellectual 

 Pursuits. 



It is natural to suppose that the soul, if not clothed 

 with a body, and so put in relation with the creatures, would 

 run on in an unprogressive circle of barren meditation. In 

 order to advance, the soul must converse with things external 

 to itself. 



In every branch of knowledge the progress is propor- 

 tional to the amount of facts on which to build, and there- 

 fore to the facility of obtaining data. In the Mathematics 

 this is easy. Do you want a quantity ? Take x ; there it 

 is ! got without trouble, and as good a quantity as one would 

 wish to have. And so in other sciences, the more abstract 

 the subject, the better it is known. Space, time, and force 

 come first in certainty. These are the subjects in Mechanics. 



Then the active powers, Light, Heat, Electricity, etc. = 

 Physics. 



Then the differences and relations of Matter = Chemistry, 

 and so on. 



Here the order of advancement is just that of abstracted- 

 ness and inapplicability to the actual. What poor blind 

 things we Maths, think ourselves ! But see the Chemists ! 

 Chemistry is a pack of cards, which the labour of hundreds 

 is slowly arranging; and one or two tricks, faint imitations of 

 Nature, have been played. Yet Chemistry is far before all 

 the Natural History sciences ; all these before Medicine ; 

 Medicine before Metaphysics, Law, and Ethics ; and these I 

 think before Pneumatology and Theology. 



Now each of these makes up in interest what it wants 

 in advancement. 



There is no doubt that of all earthly creatures Man is 

 the most important to us, yet we know less of him than 

 any other. His history is more interesting than natural 

 history; but nat. history, though obscure, is much more 

 intelligible than man's history, which is a tale half told, and 

 which, even when this world's course is run, and when, as 

 some think, man may compare notes with other rational 



