92 Mil MORTON’S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
wisdom have had their root in the lowest absurdities of human 
weakness, and the severest truths have sprung from the most ludi- 
crous and exaggerated fictions of mingled folly and fanaticism.” 
We might elucidate this by remarking, that it has been stated 
music originated from a man at leisure, listening to the strokes of 
a hammer on an anvil. 
Astronomy began with the shepherds of the East, who, while 
watching their flocks by night, fertile in their imaginings, traced 
the fancied existence of the different constellations that are now 
placed on our celestial globes. A perversion of this led to astro- 
logy, “ that species of insanity once so prevalent all over Europe, 
which consisted in the casting of nativities and horoscopes, and 
questioning the stars of heaven as to the future destinies of the 
inhabitants of the earth.” From this absurd, if not impious act, has 
arisen the science of astronomy; nor can there be any doubt but 
that the idle and ridiculous search after a substance — the philoso- 
pher’s stone — that should convert all other metals into gold, and 
an elixir which should render life interminable, first pointed out 
and afterwards cleared the path which has conducted us to the admi- 
rable science of modern chemistry: a science which has become 
so valuable that the power of language is unable to tell its amount. 
But although chemistry, as a science, may be said to be only of 
modern date, it perhaps was known as an art in the earliest 
periods of time, and possibly may be considered as coeval with the 
formation of man. I know not whether I am singular or right in 
the view which I have taken ; but of this I have no doubt, that as 
soon as mankind became sufficiently numerous to constitute society , 
their common wants called into exercise their intuitive knowledge, 
and then chemistry, as an art, began to exist. 
From the sacred writings, the oldest and best attested of all 
records, we learn that, soon after the fall of man, sacrifices were 
offered to the Deity. In the offering of these sacrifices we take for 
granted there was the enkindling of a fire. It is true, the principles 
by which this was effected may have been unknown to them, yet 
it was then, as now, the result of chemical action; and although 
it remained for after-ages to ascertain the cause of combustion, and 
its laws, and the changes which are effected by it in inflammable 
substances, constituting one of the most beautiful discoveries in 
the science of chemistry, yet their ignorance of all these invalidates 
not our position. Combustion was then as much a chemical act 
as it is now. 
In the third or fourth generation from Adam, lived Tubal Cain, 
who was “ an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.” At 
this early period of time — since very inconsiderable quantities of 
the metals are found native — some persons must have been con- 
