“ 
456. 
truths as the first and greatest aim of science, we may, perhaps, 
take next some of Francis Bacon's more practical ideas about the 
objects and aims of science ; to. increase man’s sovereignty over 
Nature, to compel Nature to be subservient to his will, and to 
minister to his wants ; to restore his lost sovereignty over Cre- 
ation. And, indeed, when the new truths are discovered, they 
are soon applied to practical purposes, and to furthering the 
material good of mankind ; but to study science with this object 
alone is usually pernicious, and always to be avoided. 
Some of you will ask me the more direct use of science. I 
fear I cannot tell you much about this ; I would rather refer you 
to some of the enthusiastic—I hope not exaggerated—articles 
which have appeared from time to time during the last few years 
in various journals and magazines. It is directly useful for the 
purpose of science scholarships at the Universities, which are 
much on the increase ; also it forms a part of the examinations at 
Woolwich, and for the Civil Service. Scientific appointments 
are year by year becoming more numerous in this country 
and in Iniia. Indirectly, science is useful to every one. 
I say I cannot tell you much about its direct and_prac- 
tical uses, because I believe that the main use of it is 
to cultivate a certain set of mental faculties, to induce a 
certain mode of thought. The modes, and tones, and phases 
of mental action are as diverse as the modes of bodily 
action, and just as we exercise one set of muscles by rowing, 
another by riding, and a third by walking, so do we exercise a 
certain set of faculties when we study classics, another set when 
we study mathematics, and a third when we study sciences. The 
cultivation of this habit of thought engenders among other 
things a habit of observation and a spirit of inquiry. Questions 
suggest themselves daily, for an answer to which we must apply 
to science. Why do winds blow and storms rage? What are 
day and night, summer and winter, sunshine and frost? Of cer- 
tain common things we rarely think, or if we do we assign the 
simplest meaning to them. For how many centuries did not 
mankind believe the world to be flat, the sun to be a globe of 
fire quenched nightly in the western sea, the sky to be solid, and 
the stars set into it like gems! Savages still believe that the 
firmament is a solid dome, and the sun ani moon living creatures 
who walk across it. 
The third of our four divisions concerns the methods we shall 
follow ia our study of the sciences discussed above. Firstly :— 
lectures. It is essential that you should see the various changes 
wrought upon or within matter ; not alone hear about them or 
read of them. You must not only observe, but you must think 
of the experimental results ; understand them ; understand the 
means by which they are brought about. It will be well for you 
to take notes, roughly at first, to be copied out afterward, and 
extended from memory. It is a mistake to take very full no‘es 
during a lecture. They may become an almost verbatim report 
of the lecture; the spirit of the matter is lost becaus2 the mind 
is fixed upon a detail. Experiments also are often lost ; and at 
the end a mass of writing remains, but no knowledge of the 
work done. It is preferable to write down headings of sub- 
jects; the pith and marrow of the subject matter only ;—in 
a word, to make merely an outline of the picture, and to 
fill in the details afterwards from memory. Sketches of appa- 
ratus are always desired among the notes, also any general 
remarks, and queries. 
questioned, and at the commencement of each lecture the matter 
of the preceding lecture will be recapitulated ; at this time also 
your own queries will be answered. It is important that you 
should not allow any subject to be partially understood, or mis- 
understood. Make a note of any difficulty, and let it be cleared 
up at the commencement of the next lecture, or at some inter- 
mediate time. The misunderstanding of one important fact may 
render the right understanding of succeeding matter nearly im- 
possible. Then, later in the half, I should like you to read in 
text-books about the subject of your lectures, and thus to sup- 
plement the lecture-work by book-work. The advantage of this 
will be very apparent when you are examined. 
What we desire is that science shall grow up side by side with 
your other subjects of study, and enter into your daily life. It 
is thus only that it can possess any real vitality. And 
if any subject of study possesses not vitality—intense, active, 
exuberant vitality—it languishes, becomes unhealthy, weak, and 
ultimately useless. 
branch, then another, and then dies entirely. And when upon 
the tree of knowledge a new branch is grafted, we desire to see 
it growing up side by side with the great branches already there. 
Our school knowledge—the knowledge which in its entirety ful- 
At the end of each lecture you will be | 
It resembles a tree which loses first one | 
NATURE 




[Oc¢. 5, 1871 

fils the conditions of that comprehensive word cz/twre—must be 
one and undivided ; hence a new subject can only flourish when 
it is woven completely into our school life, when it ceases to be 
regarded as a something extraneous and beyond the pale. I hope 
none of you are like the doctors of Salamanca whea they were 
confronted with Columbus, or like the cardinals who passed 
judgment upon Jordano Bruno and Galileo. 
I must add one word in conclusion as to the attitude of mind 
most conducive to a right study of natural science. In the first 
place it is necessary to free the mind from previous ideas and 
conjectures, and to neglect the evidence of the senses unsupported 
by extraneous means ; thus the earth seems to be flat, and the 
sun to be a glowing disc which moves around it, yet research 
has proved that our senses here deceive us. Again, how difficult 
it is to realise the fact that two sounds may produce silence, two 
lights darkness, until it is experimentally proved that such is the 
case, It is hard to believe that the force which manifests itself 
by attracting light bodies when amber is rubbed, is identical 
with lightning, yet such has been proved to be the fact. We 
must clear our minds from preconceived opinions before we can 
profit much by the teachings of science. 
Do not be discouraged by the apparent difficulty of science at 
starting ; all things newly presented to the mind require the 
exercise of some effort before they can be grasped. If the cur- 
rent of our thoughts is to be diverted into a new channel, it 
must needs require some time to change it from its old course, 
Comfort yourselves with the knowledge that at the outset you 
know more true natural science than did Aristotle and all the 
great philosophers of antiquity. The very science which you 
learn almost as soon as ycu know the alphabet, the fundamental 
ideas about the earth, the sun, the moon, the air, places you at 
starting ahead, in the matter of science, of the flower of Middle 
Age erudition: Professors of the Sorbonne, Doctors of Sala- 
manca, Monsignori of the Sacred College. If, at first, the path 
of science seems to wind uphill all the way, remember that when 
the toil is over the view from the summit is very glorious. The 
sun rises upon a new land infinitely vast, infinitely fertile ; full 
of streams by the side of which you may wander, and see all 
nature reflected in their pure depths. 
Above all things, I would ask you to study science reverently. 
Many of our studies concern the works of man, here we are 
dealing with the works of God, governed directly by His laws. 
Surely then it behoves us to bow our heads as we enter the portal 
of Nature, to be possessed of infinite humility, to assume no 
prying spirit of curiosity, to have no intellectual pride. Some 
of you no doubt remember Rembrandt’s picture of the ‘* Ana- 
tomic Lesson,” and the calm, reverent, inquiring look of the 
students who surround the dead man; a sort of awe in the 
presence of the wonderful mechanism of the microcosm Man, 
as we must have awe in the presence of the macrocosm Nature. 
A something almost akin to the deisedaimonia of the Ancients ; 
a reverential fear of that which is obscure, and but partly mani- 
fest. I know not whether the smaller and more obscure works 
of God do not convey this even more than those which are im- 
measurably greater. S. Augustine says, ‘* Deus est magnus in 
magnis, maximus autem in minimis.” We are scarcely more 
awed by the myriad stars and suns and systems around us than 
by the myriad atoms of which the smallest mass of matter con- 
sists, and which possess functions, attributes, actions, as definite 
in character, as varied in form, and as absolutely governed by 
immutable laws, as the members of systems comprising a million 
worlds, ten million miles away. 

ZOOLOGICAL RESULTS OF THE 1870 DREDG- 
ING EXPEDITION OF THE YACHT“ NORNA” 
OFF THE COAST OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL* 
T the last meeting of this Association, held at Liverpool, I 
exhibited as one of the trophies of the Vorza Expedition 
a new silicious sponge, to which I gave the name of Pheronema 
Grayi, or ‘the Portuguese Bird’s-Nest Sponge ;” and on this 
occasion the following is a brief synopsis of other leading novel- 
ties and more general results of the dredging cruise. A few 
preliminary remarks on the origin and object of the expedition 
may preface this synopsis. 
* Communicated to the Biological Section of the British Association, 
Edinburgh, August 8, 1871. 
