STUDY OP HER LAWS, 5 



the simplicity of the earlier ages of the world ; to them the 

 undisturbed succession of the planetary movements, and the 

 progressive development of animal and vegetable life, were 

 pledges of an order yet undiscovered in other relations, but 

 of which they instinctively divined the existence. To us in 

 an advanced civilisation belongs the enjoyment of the precise 

 knowledge of phsenomena. From the time when man in 

 interrogating nature began to experiment, or to produce 

 phsenomena under definite conditions, and to collect and 

 record the fruits of experience, so that investigation might 

 no longer be restricted by the short limits of a single life, 

 the philosophy of nature laid aside the vague and poetic 

 forms with which she had at first been clothed, and has 

 adopted a more severe cliaracter : she now weighs the value 

 of observations, and no longer divines, but combines and 

 reasons. Exploded errors may survive partially among the 

 uneducated, aided in some instances by an obscure and 

 mystic phraseology : they have also left behind them many 

 expressions by which our nomenclature is more or less dis- 

 figured ; while a few of happier, though figurative origin, have 

 gradually received more accurate definition, and have been 

 found worthy of preservation in our scientific language. 



The aspect of external nature, as it presents itself in its 

 generality to thoughtful contemplation, is that of unity in 

 diversity, and of connection, resemblance and order, among 

 created things most dissimilar in their form; one fair 

 harmonious whole. To seize this unity and this harmony, 

 amid such an immense assemblage of objects and forces, 

 to embrace alike the discoveries of the earliest ages and those 

 of our own time, and to analyse the details of phsenomena 

 without sinking under their mass, are efforts of human 



