COMMON KNOWLEDGE AND SCIENCE. 3 
knowledge is rather brought than sought; and such 
ratiocination is little more than the working of a blind 
intellectual instinct. 
It is only when the mind passes beyond this condition 
that it begins to evolve science. When simple curiosity 
passes into the love of knowledge as such, and the 
gratification of the wsthetic sense of the beauty of com- 
pleteness and accuracy seems more desirable than the 
easy indolence of ignorance; when the finding out of 
the causes of things becomes a source of joy, and he 
is counted happy who is successful in the search ; common 
knowledge of nature passes into what our forefathers 
called Natural History, from whence there is but a step 
to that which used to be termed Natural Philosophy, and 
now passes by the name of Physical Science. 
In this final stage of knowledge, the phenomena of 
nature are regarded as one continuous series of causes 
and effects; and the ultimate object of science is to trace 
out that series, from the term which is nearest to us, to 
that which is at the furthest limit accessible to our means 
of investigation. 
The course of nature as it is, as it has been, and as it 
will be, is the object of scientific inquiry; whatever lies 
beyond, above, or below this, is outside science. But. 
the philosopher need not despair at the limitation of his 
field of labour: in relation to the human mind Nature is 
boundless; and, though nowhere inaccessible, she is 
everywhere unfathomable, ae 
