74 INDOOB STUDIES 



in the realm of ideas and of morals. In his labora- 

 tory you shall witness wonderful combinations, sur- 

 prising affinities, unexpected relations of opposites, 

 threads and ties unthought of. 



Emerson went through the cabinet of the scien- 

 tist as one goes through a book-stall to find an odd 

 volume to complete a set; or through a collection 

 of pictures, looking for a companion piece. He 

 took what suited him, what he had use for at home. 

 He was a provident bee exploring all fields for 

 honey, and he could distill the nectar from the 

 most unlikely sources. Science for its own sake 

 he perhaps cared little for, and on one occasion 

 refers rather disdainfully to "this post-mortem 

 science." Astrology, he says, interests us more, 

 " for it tied man to the system. Instead of an iso- 

 lated beggar, the farthest star felt him, and he felt 

 the star." "The human heart concerns us more 

 than the poring into microscopes, and is larger than 

 can be measured by the pompous figures of the 

 astronomer." But where he could turn science 

 over and read a moral on the other side, then he 

 valued it, — then the bud became a leaf or a flower 

 instead of a thorn. 



While in London in 1848 he heard Faraday lec- 

 ture in the Eoyal Institute on dia, or cross mag- 

 netism, and Emerson instantly caught at the idea as 

 applicable in metaphysics. " Diamagnetism, " he 

 says, " is a law of the mind to the full extent of 

 Earaday's idea; namely, that every mind has a new 

 compass, a new north, a new direction of its own. 



