THE TECHNOLOGIST. [August 1, 1864. 



10 ON THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES WHICH FORM 



are eaten 7:>y animals, but in reality reappears in their so-called animal 

 heat, and in the chemical, electrical, and other forces which act upon 

 and within them. It reappears, also, I do not doubt, in their vegetable 

 life, and changes into what we call vital force. Do not, however, mis- 

 understand me, as going beyond physical force. Life, remember, is not 

 mind. The immaterial spirit, the immortal soul, is far above the Snn. 

 We know him, and we know ourselves, but he knows neither himself 

 nor us. 



Astronomy thus stands much nearer industrialism, in all its depart- 

 ments, than perhaps any of us fully realize. I cannot wonder that men, 

 even practical men, were once astrologers. A dim sense of obligation to 

 the heavenly bodies for something more than starlight was obseurely 

 felt perhaps by all, and rested, as the stable foundation-stone of a 

 worthless building, at the bottom of the fantastic erection which formed 

 the astrology of the middle ages. And still more intelligible is sun- 

 worship. Only by a fallen and a rebel angel could such words be 

 uttered as " I add thy name, O sun .' to tell thee how I hate thy beams." 

 The worst of men would recall that God " maketh His sun to rise on the 

 evil and on the good;" and across the chasm of centuries I own to a 

 sympathy with the pagan who worshipped as a god the bountiful Sun. 



If now we turn to Chemistry, as pre-eminently the Experimental 

 Science, Ave shall find everything reversed. Were we to personify 

 ancient chemistry, we should represent her as a speechless priestess of 

 nature, sworn to silence, loving concealment, and the most grudging of 

 givere. She persuaded mankind for centuries that there were but four 

 elements, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water ; and so cunning a conjuror was 

 she, that though in open day she was continually taking chem to pieces 

 before the eyes of all, they did not detect the trick, but pronounced 

 each fancied element one and indivisible. She still stretches forth her 

 hands, filled with truths the most Avonderful ; but those hands are 

 clenched, and yon must borrow her strength before you can open them. 

 Every substance under her control is a locked casket, with a concealed 

 key-hole, and no key. You must first, if you can, find the key-hole, 

 which a search for ages has often failed to find ; and then stud}' as best 

 you may the hidden wards of the lock ; and thereafter forge not a pick- 

 lock, but a perfect key, which in a multitude of cases will open the lock 

 for which it was made. 



The characteristic attitude, accordingly, of the chemist is very 

 different from that of the astronomer. It is true that the former, like 

 the latter, and like all the students of nature, must deal much in simple 

 observation. The colours, the odoxirs, the tastes, the crystalline shapes, 

 the densities, the melting and boiling points, and many analogous pro- 

 perties or phenomena presented by bodies, are carefully noticed and 

 registered by him. In observing these, however, he is not doing his 

 own work, but that of the physieist : his proper work begins where that 

 of the latter ends. Whatever is brought him. whether meteoric stone 



