4 ASPECT OF NATURE. AND 



picture of those ideas and those delights which a true and 

 profound feeling in her contemplation inspires, it is needful 

 that thought should clothe itself freely and without con- 

 straint in such forms and with such elevation of language, 

 as may be least unworthy of the grandeur and majesty of 

 creation. 



If the study of physical phenomena be regarded in its 

 bearings, not on the material wants of man, but on his 

 general intellectual progress, its highest result is found in 

 the knowledge of those mutual relations which link together 

 the various powers of nature. It is the intuitive and intimate 

 persuasion of the existence of these relations which at once 

 enlarges and elevates our views, and enhances our enjoyment. 

 Such extended views are the growth of observation, of medi- 

 tation, and of the spirit of the age, which is ever reflected in 

 the operations of the human mind whatever may be their 

 direction. Those who by the light of history should trace 

 back through past ages the progress of physical knowledge to 

 its early and remote sources, would learn how for thousands 

 of years the human mind has laboured to lay hold of the 

 sure thread of the invariability of natural laws, amid the per- 

 plexities of ceaseless change ; and in so doing has gradually 

 conquered, so to speak, great part of the physical universe* 

 In following back this mysterious track, still the same image 

 of the Cosmos reappears, which, in its earlier revelation, 

 shewed itself as a presentiment of the true harmony and 

 order of the universe, and which, in our days, presents itself 

 as the fruit of long-continued and laborious observation. 

 Each of these two epochs of the contemplation of the ex- 

 ternal world has its own proper enjoyment : that belonging 

 to the first awakening of such reflections is well suited to 



