44 THE JUST CLAIMS OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 



not only directly to astronomy, but indirectly to scien- 

 tific study in general. After chemistry had made a fair 

 start in its grand career, the fog of alchemy, lurid with 

 gleams of false lights, rolled over it and long stifled its 

 energies and true rjrogress. 



The dishonest pursuit of chemistry and physics as a 

 means of influence in necromancy and in medical charla- 

 tanism, have at certain periods tended to hold up these 

 noble sciences to popular reproach. 



At last, with the advancing centuries, the enlighten- 

 ment of civilization refused to tolerate anything under 

 the name of science that was not the honest study of 

 nature with the purpose solely of arriving at truth. Al- 

 chemy, astrology and necromancy continued, indeed, 

 their teaching and influence even into our own century ; 

 but the true and recognized scientific research of the world 

 was at last on a high plane of honesty — far above con- 

 tamination with such quackeries. 



Yet it was not until it had passed through another 

 stage that it reached its highest plane of independent 

 thought. It was now in the main an honest, but it was 

 not yet a simple search after the facts and laws of mate- 

 rial nature. It was still mixed and entangled with 

 studies which, though noble and honest enough in them- 

 selves, were not in the sphere of natural science. 



These foreign elements were mainly of three kinds : 

 First, the study and practice of medicine, or the healing 

 art, in its legitimate forms. Much of chemical experi- 

 mentation was turned entirely in this direction, in the 

 honest hope of controlling bodily disorders by a finished 

 system of chemical laws. But while attention was thus 

 distracted from higher chemical study, there was far less 

 gain than had been hoped in the line of medical practice. 

 The second element, commingled with scientific study, 

 was the intense desire to pursue it inordinately in those 

 lines where it bears directly on accumulation of material 



28 



