Introductory Lecture. 
291 
of its plastic energies. The recent discovery of the art of 
printing, came happily in aid of the impulse imparted to the 
human intellect. Gifted with wings which never wearied f 
knowledge, in a thousand forms, flew hither and thither over 
Europe, bearing into distant regions the riches of favoured 
spots without exhausting these, gathering every where in order 
every where to diffuse, and directing the energies of a whole 
continent into one united effort for improvement. Immense 
effects could not but result from such a movement. An im- 
pulse was given to the human mind, which has been propaga- 
ted with almost constantly increasing vigour to the present 
times, producing in every age fruits which have astonished 
w T hile they benefited the world, and promising to go on shed- 
ding its blessings throughout the indefinite future. 
But with the knowledge of the ancients were revived all 
their follies and extravagancies. The intellect had remained 
too long inactive to be able to distinguish truth from the mass 
of error with which it was mingled, and the aroused appetite 
was too keen to reject even the husks and offal which were 
presented to it along with more wholesome nutriment. But 
the Materia Medica of the fifteenth century excelled that of 
the Greeks and Romans in the accessions which it had re- 
ceived from the Arabians, and in those which began to ac- 
crue from chemical research. The labours of the Alche- 
mists added greatly to its resources. At first sight, it may 
appear incomprehensible that sagacious men should ever have 
engaged in that wild search after miraculous energies in the 
products of nature. But the human mind had been subjected 
to no discipline. Awakened from a long sleep, it beheld an 
infinity of objects moving before it, and dazzled by the un- 
wonted splendour, could not at once trace that secret cord 
which bound the apparent confusion in a beautiful system of 
order. No wonder that some of the wild dreams which had 
been flitting past it for centuries, should, in the first moments 
of aroused consciousness, still cling to its recollections with 
the force of realities. The two strongest emotions of the hu- 
man breast — the love of life and the lust of power — co-ope- 
