universally appreciated by the intelligent multitude. 

 We must become as intimately acquainted with them 

 as we have been with the legends of the past. To 

 attain this end, it is not, however, obligatory on every 

 one to become a proficient in the study of the details 

 of science, any laore than .that the customary education 

 hitherto given, pre-supposes a thorough acquaintance 

 with the legendary world. It is the general appreciation 

 of comprehensive views which vivifies the imagination 

 and ennobles our enjoyment of the picture of Nature. 

 The knowledge must belong not only to the understand- 

 ing, but must constitute the very essence of our feelings. 

 The most ignorant, as participators of a common heri- 

 tage, have unconsciously gained a knowledge of Nature 

 very difierent from that which was coincident with the 

 childhood of the human race. Truths diffuse themselves 

 gradually and almost insensibly : — at first admired and 

 adopted by a few who are familiar w^ith the condition of 

 science, and are prepared to appreciate the enlargement 

 of view — from them communicated to a large circle, 

 who receive them without discussion ; and at length, 

 in this widening progress, becoming so universal as 

 almost to seem the result of instinct : like the light of 

 the sun, which we readily ascribe to that luminary, as 

 inflows directly from it, and forces its image on our 

 sigBit ; but which, when refiected from object to object 

 constituting that diffused illumination which enlivens 

 and beautifies our apartments — " soon ceases to remind 

 us of its origin, and seems almost to be a part of the 

 very atmosphere which we breathe." It would seem as 

 if the great physical discoveries do not nourish and 

 vivify the imaginative faculties, until they become so 



