2/4 PROGRESS OF RUIN. 



the observation and knowledge of nature, have been 

 vitiated. The saying is common, even to a pro- 

 verb, that the history of any period, whatever may 

 be the events of which that history is to give an 

 account even if they are the occurrences in the 

 life of one individual, cannot be properly written, 

 till many years after the period has elapsed. We 

 shall not inquire why that should be the case, be- 

 cause the result of the inquiry might not be very 

 satisfactory ; but if it be true, as it is very ge- 

 nerally said to be, that the events of history are 

 the better understood, the further the study of 

 them is removed from actual observation, most 

 assuredly the reverse is the case with nature ; for 

 in it, nothing but immediate observation can be 

 relied on ; and that which, it seems, is philoso- 

 phic truth in the successions of human conduct, 

 is error, and nothing but error, when applied to 

 the knowledge of things. 



If there were nothing in nature but the pro- 

 perties of matter, the agencies of light and heat, 

 and those actions of substances upon each other, 

 which can, wholly, or even in part, be imitated 

 in the laboratory of the chemist, then nature 

 would altogether be in progress toward destruction. 

 The tendency of all those powers is to produce 

 inorganic masses masses of which the one part is 

 not necessary for the operation of the others; 

 but of which any portion may be considered as a 

 whole, whatever may be its form and magnitude. 

 The heat of a burning taper, though not the same 

 in degree, is just as entirely heat as that of Etna, 

 during an eruption, and the light of the same 

 taper is just as completely light as that of the 

 mid-day sun. So also, if the water of a pond 



