ADDRESS. Ixxxi 



those ideas. Those records must indeed have been a dead letter to any one 

 who could stand carping at the intellectual crotchets of a good and honest 

 worker, instead of giving him all brotherly help in furtherance of his work. 



To one who knows the particulars of our science thoroughly, and who knows 

 also what a variety of ideas have been resorted to in working oiit the whole 

 body of truths of which the science is composed, there are few more impressive 

 and elevating subjects of contemplation than the unity in the clear and bold 

 outline of that noble structure. 



I hope that you will not suppose, from my references to Chemistry as pro- 

 moting the development of these habits and powers of mind, that I wish to 

 claim for that particular branch of science any exclusive merit of the kind ; 

 for I can assure you that nothing can be further from my intention. 



I conceived that you would wish me to speak of that department of science 

 which I have had occasion to study more particularly ; but much that I have 

 said of it might be said with equal truth of other studies, while some of its 

 merits may be claimed in a higher degree by other branches of science. On 

 the other hand, those highest lessons which I have illustrated by chemistry 

 are best learnt by those whose intellectual horizon includes other provinces of 

 knowledge. 



Chemistry presents peculiar advantages for educational purposes in the 

 combination of breadth and accuracy in the training which it affords ; and I 

 am inclined to think that in this respect it is at present unequalled. There is 

 reason to believe that it will play an important part in general education, and 

 render valuable services to it in conjunction with other scientific and with 

 literary studies. 



I trust that the facts which I have submitted to your consideration may 

 suffice to show you how fallacious is that materialistic idea of Physical Science 

 which represents it as leading away from the study of man's noblest faculties, 

 and from a sympathy with his most elevated aspirations, towards mere inani- 

 mate matter. The material work of science is directed by ideas towards the 

 attainment of further ideas. Each step in science is an addition to our ideas, 

 or an improvement of them. A science is but a body of ideas respecting the 

 order of nature. 



Each idea which forms part of Physical Science has been derived from ob- 

 servation of nature, and has been tested again and again in the most various 

 ways by reference to nature ; but this very soundness of our materials 

 enables us to raise upon the rock of truth a loftier structure of ideas 

 than could be erected on any other foundation by the aid of uncertain ma- 

 terials. 



The study of science is the stiidy of man's most accurate and perfect intel- 

 lectual labours ; and he who would know the powers of the human mind 

 must go to science for his materials. 



Like other powers of the mind, the imagination is powerfully exercised, 

 and at the same time disciplined, by scientific work. Every investigator has 

 frequent occasion to call forth in his mind a distinct image of something in 

 nature which could produce the appearances which he witnesses, or to frame 

 a proposition embodying some observed relation ; and in each case the image 

 or the proposition is required to be true to the materials from which it is 

 formed. There is perhaps no more perfect elementary illustration of the ac- 

 curate and useful employment of the imagination than the process of forming 

 in the language of symbols, from concrete data, one of these admirable 

 general propositions called equations ; on the other hand, the contemplation 

 of the order and harmony of nature as disclosed to us by science supplies the 



