26 



lead to higher and more ennobling views of the uni- 

 verse. 



The primary difficulty in making the physical know- 

 ledge already acquired the common property of all classes 

 of society, is the lamentable fact, that those w^ho have 

 attempted to populari7X science in our country, have too 

 frequently been superficial pretenders, who possess not 

 the slightest conception of that mutual connection which 

 constitutes the very life-blood of genuine science. In 

 the hands of such men, every noble and soul-elevating 

 aspiration is merged in a cheerless philosophy which 

 clings to the earth, and reduces the mind to a mechani- 

 cal condition, delighting in the accumulation of isolated 

 facts, regardless of the great laws by which these are 

 regulated, and the harmony of all physical phenomena 

 secured. The great mass of mankind, even in an 

 advanced state of intellectual cultivation, cannot be 

 interested in the details of the processes by which impor- 

 tant results have been reached. But the great general 

 truths to which science has led, are within the compre- 

 hension of every sound understanding ; and these can 

 only be communicated in an intelligible form, by men of 

 clear and vivid conceptions, and enlarged, compre- 

 hensive and well-grounded knowledge. 



Moreover, that there is no reason for apprehending 

 that the study of the phj^sical sciences deprives the mind 

 of imagination, or the character of its elevation and 

 refinement, is abundantly proved by an appeal to facts. 

 The names of ^Leonardo da Vinci, the painter, sculptor, 

 architect and physical philosopher, and of John Wolf- 

 gang Goethe, the great modern poet, will forever link 

 themselves with the highest philosophy of nature : 



