202 Science and the Sense of Beauty . [April, 
The student of modern Science is led by patient observa- 
tion and experiment into the details of Nature. He is no 
longer viewing the great masses of the heavens and endea- 
vouring to solve the riddle of their mysterious motions. He 
is busy investigating the component particles of their large 
masses. The discovery of gravitation has silenced the music 
of the spheres, and the spectroscope has put their ancient 
divinity to flight. The sun is seen to be a blazing fire of the 
chemical elements, giving out its central heat to surrounding 
planets ; the stars are more distant suns ; the nebulas are 
fiery clouds of incandescent gas. All bodies, whether on 
earth or in the heavens, are known to be compounded of 
small pieces of matter called atoms. All the atoms of one 
substance-carbon, oxygen, gold — are alike, and have the 
same properties wherever found. By close observation and 
laborious experiment these properties are slowly discovered. 
When he has made himself master of their secret, the 
chemist is able to reproduce for himself, in his laboratory, 
the phenomena of Nature which are due to the combinations 
and decompositions of these molecules. He can even go 
farther, and create for himself new substances, crystals, 
airs, and liquids, never found on the earth, and perhaps 
existing nowhere else. Such experiments — which are never 
failing, never capricious, but always yield the same result 
when the same preparations have been made — impress upon 
the mind of the scientist the conviction that atoms are en- 
dowed with certain inherent properties which never alter in 
degree or kind. In all the numberless experiments which 
are constantly being made, there is not a vestige of evidence 
to show that an ultimate particle has ever perished. On the 
contrary, the grand results of modern chemistry are built 
upon the faith that matter is indestructible. 
Besides matter itself, the modern student of Science has 
to deal with the motions of matter. Heat, light, electricity, 
magnetism, sound, and sensation, are all accompanied by 
molecular motion ; they are all manifestations of energy. 
Profound research has shown that this motion is never lost ; 
it may change its form, but it is never destroyed, nor can it 
be created by man. Heat-energy may be transformed into 
electricity, electricity into magnetism, magnetism into sound 
or light, and these again into sensation ; but the sum of the 
energy, through all its varied transformations, is known to 
remain the same. The modern science of physics rests on 
the belief that energy is indestructible. These two great 
generalisations are the recent results of our positive Science. 
In contemplating them the student comes to look upon the 
