The Advance of Science. 165 
As we stand and gaze on the ruined structures reared by the 
ancient art of Babylon, Nineveh, and Egypt, we feel an awe in- 
spired by those once mighty structures. | But when we pause to 
think that the demon was the cause of the erection of these noble 
monuments of ancient civilisation, we cannot but rejoice at the 
more peaceful arts of the present era. The builders of these 
seem to have been admirers of a grand, massive, and imposing 
style ; and it was not until some centuries later, that the fine and 
beautiful architecture of the Greeks and Romans made its 
appearance. 
Dew was regarded by the ancients as ethereal, and they 
believed that if a lark’s egg were to be filled with it, that at sun- 
rise it would fly off into space. But we are not informed that 
this interesting experiment was ever performed. The Greeks 
knew that amber, when rubbed, would attract bits of straw, 
feathers, etc., and from this remarkable quality it was supposed to 
possess a soul! From the Greek name for this substance 
(Electron) our word electricity is derived. 
As late as the fifteenth century, questions like the following 
were discussed in France: ‘ How many angels can stand on the 
point of a needle at the same time ?” Such a question at the 
present time would be regarded as ridiculous in the extreme; yet 
that and many similar ones were once as earnestly discussed by 
the best educated men of France, and with as much interest, as 
the scientists of the present day discuss some newly discovered 
phenomenon in geology, chemistry, astronomy, or other branch of 
science. 
The ancients regarded the stars as gods. There was a god of 
war, a god of the vine, and so on, every department of art having 
its special divinity. But the investigations of modern science 
prove that many of these stars (the planets) are worlds, and with 
like diurnal revolutions ; while some of them are accompanied by 
satellites, and it is very probable, also, that some are inhabited. 
Others of these stars are suns, which, like our own luminary, have 
their peculiar systems of planets revolving around them. These 
stars are so very remote from us and each other, that the human 
mind is totally incapable of comprehending the distance. 
Then, again, the earth was regarded as an extended plain which 
rested upon the back of an elephant, that on a tortoise, and that 
on an immense serpent, and so on indefinitely. But modern 
science has shown the fallacy of this theory also, and proved that 
the earth is a globe, suspended in space and revolving around its 
source of light in an orbit of over 500 billion miles i in circum- 
ference. 
Fossils formed during the different periods that passed in fitting 
this earth for the habitation of man, were regarded as freaks of 
