50 THE JUST CLAIMS OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 



the great chisel in the Supreme Architect's hands, by 

 which have been cut out the grander economic, as well as 

 aesthetic and romantic features of the continents. 



How slight an acquaintance with all these functions 

 has the ordinary observer reached ! 



So, if you call for the popular apprehension as to the 

 great uses and results of science, you will have enu- 

 merated gunpowder and dynamite, steam and caloric 

 engines, the telescope, the telegraph and the telephone. 



All these things are very well and very brilliant 

 results. They come within the honorable aims of 

 science., and are to be sought for and gloried in. But 

 they are, at best, the few inferior material results, and 

 are no true measure of its higher work. 



What this higher work is I will try to indicate briefly, 

 as I comprehend it. It is purely an intellectual work, 

 seeking to be rational rather than empirical ; aiming only 

 indirectly at material achievements and wealth, but 

 directly at intellectual comprehension and command of 

 the facts, laws and powers of nature. In so far as it 

 accomplishes these objects the grand result is not merely 

 the acquisition of the principles which regulate the pro- 

 found system of nature, but the noble expansion of the 

 human mind, as it becomes by degrees capable of com- 

 prehending those laws in their intricacy and grandeur. 

 And, if it were possible for man, (which I suppose it is 

 not), to understand finally and thoroughly all this inter- 

 woven system of natural laws which regulate the world 

 and their organic and inorganic contents, he would have 

 taken a long step, intellectually, (I say it reverently), 

 toward attaining the vaster mind of Him who made 

 this system of laws. 



The steps that scientists take in accomplishing their 

 higher work may be described as follows : 



First, the patient, exact, constant observation and re- 



34 



