tion is never satisfied. Nature, however familiarized still offers something new, something more attractive than ever; and the farther she leads us into her sanctuary, the more she constrains us to proceed.

Suppose now, for a moment, the substances of the chemist had been thus combined for the sole purpose of giving salutary discipline to the mind of man, what other combination could have better served that purpose? Suppose it to have been the design of the Creator to give man at once a motive and an occasion to task his powers in finding out the elements of material bodies, to make him study hard for partial knowledge to keep him ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of all truth; to withhold inflexibly from him all knowledge but what he should toil for, and compel him, to learn in a way that shall discipline his mind, how admirable a plan has been chosen for that end. The teacher of your son, after an easy lesson gives him a harder; and, that being mastered, a harder still; taking care that the difficulties do not increase, on the one hand, too fast, and so discourage and repel the pupil, nor on the other, too slow, and so fail to challenge his best exertions. This is the true course of education for the human mind. Incite the powers, then task them. So the Creator trains the pupils of his school. Do we call for proof of his incitements? We find it in the fact that ever since the creation men have been pursuing some form of speculation concerning the constitution of matter; cutting, hammering, burning and melting, to find out, if they might, how and of what the things around them are made. Doubtless the experiments were sufficiently unskilful, ill-directed, unsuccessful. But the more so, the greater praise to the great disciplinarian, who can keep up the zeal of his pupils for studies so much beyond their depth; who can keep them so patiently trying at problems which they might never solve, and repeating their exertions and their failures without despair. Is not such a provision for mental incitement perfect? And do we call for proof that he puts these incited powers to the task? We have only to witness the unsparing devotion with which men of science commonly pursue their labours; what watchings and fastings they often endure, what perils by sea, and perils by land. These scientific labours are performed by the highest orders of the human understanding. It is not to the intellectual dwarf, or the novice in learning, whose motions evince no power, and apply no skill, that nature surrenders her treasures. But she waits for

the addresses of the strongest powers, best trained. It is not mere diligence that prevails in man's argument with nature. There must be an energy and a patience and comprehensiveness of understanding, which can plan and conduct inquiries long, complicate and profound; there must be a magnanimous disdain for indolence, a taste for activity, which turns from languid and less intellectual pursuits, to enjoy the exertion of healthy and growing mental power. Such are the spirits whom nature confesses as her favourites and to whom she unfolds her mysteries; and such spirits, the glory of their kind, bear witness to the success of the Creator's plan for training the understanding of the human

race.

We cannot stop here. What has been said of chemistry as a science of analysis, may be repeated of all its family of synthetic arts. It is not alone as substances to be inspected and classified, it is not alone as compounds to be analysed, that the bodies of the material world come before.

Although, in that view they present an ocean of mystery apparently without a bottom or a shore, it is not in that view alone that they are attractive and absorbing to the human mind. The phenomena of matter, in artificial, useful, and pleasing combinations, open a field of boundless interest. Go back to the time when men began their rude preparations of food, and drink, and clothing, when they began to add their simple conveniences and embellishments to their natural shelters, and even then you find the chemical and the mechanical properties of matter and their effacts, in new and countless combinations, to be the objects of eager and unwearied study. From supplying natural and imperious want, men proceed to consult incidental convenience. From convenience they advance to luxury. The eye, the ear, the senses of touch and of smell and of taste, are all incessantly employed in watching the phenomena of matter, taking note of every agreeable effect, that reason may trace the cause. To supply man with some necessary, some convenience, or some luxury, the substances around are combined by inventions without number. Every imaginable delicacy plies his taste. His person, his dwelling, his estate, is adorned with every invention which can please the eye. All nature is constantly besought for harmony for his ear. The productions of every clime he enjoys in each. The forces and the motions of matter he holds under his control, and makes them perform for him

all manner of operations with more despatch, precision and economy than he can perform them for himself. Now whence all these proceedings? Man's bodily wants never called for them; and even now that their results are in existence, the world of wealth and leisure is exhausted of inventions to apply them to use. The artificial objects of taste come not into being at the bidding of man's bodily necessities. They have a nobler origin. They are the results of that ever active mind that will give neither itself nor nature rest. What matters it whether new phenomena give promise of economic utility or not? They are themselves objects of interest to the inquisitive mind. Most inventions in the arts, both the useful and the ornamental, although conducive to convenience and to the pleasure of cultivated taste, are not the offspring of man's sense of want. They do not, even in common cases, grow out of calculations of gain. And hence no wonder that the true connexion between the refinement and the wealth of nations is so undemonstrable. Is money the chief end of mind? Has reason no office but to cater for the body? Is man's exhaustless ingenuity incapable of no other impulse than that of animal desire?

To represent the sordid calculations of utility as the source of any large proportion of the arts, we must have observed mankind with an unphilosophical eye. Do men live longer, live better, live happier, with these arts, than they once lived without them? We ask this question respecting the bodily condition; and we ask it with all deliberation, requesting that none may answer it without pondering carefully what it involves. Has it been the great aim of human ingenuity to make men richer or happier; or are those ever busy minds moved by a sleepless and a resistless desire to find out what nature can be made to do? The questions forever agitated in the world of science and art are such as these: What are the powers and properties of matter? How may they manifest themselves to man? How may they furnish most matter for agreeable thought, increase the treasures of his understanding, and give his intellectual toil the greatest intellectual reward? From the peaceful, healthful, and vigorous industry of Eden, down to the feverish and wearisome labours of modern science and art, we discern the working of that delicate yet mighty prineiple which conducts the circulation of influence from the material creation through the intellectual and moral system

of man. It is reason, quickened by sensation, striving to clear the dimness from her own vision and the darkness from the face of nature; and at every impulse from the senses, yielding to her leading propensity and exclaiming, What is this? It is not, How shall I eat it, or, How shall I drink it, or, How shall I add it to my vesture? but, What is it? Of what is it composed? and to what already known is it like? In such a spirit of inquiry, the philosopher who is the man of reason, takes his stand in the thoroughfare of nature's movements, not to ask alms for his animal wants, but to demand of each passing event, whence it cometh and whither it goeth. The employment is congenial with his nature. And it suits his station. Man has the right to ask all such questions, from nothing, though it were but his own curiosity. He has authority thus to use the creation for his own entertainment and improvement. The things around him, are all the subjects of his empire, and he may lay them under tribute to his own treasury. Man, the rational, the immortal, a beggar at the door of matter, seeking only a crumb for his hunger, a shred for his nakedness, a lever to move his body, or some glittering foil to adorn it? The lord of the creation bending the knee before his vassal, for a pitiful contribution to his bodily want? No,

no.

His conversation with matter has a higher character. What does man want of a thousand things he is learning, except to know them? He seeks the mental benefit of knowing them, and of having learned them himself, and to have that benefit forever. What need has the obscure mechanic of the antique and uncouth fragments of oriental learning? Yet you shall see the blacksmith between his fire and his anvil, parsing Arabic and Chinese. What concern has the ploughboy with the stars? Yet you shall see him, thoughtless of his plough as were the mules that drew it, seeking his evening recreation in exploring the milky way; and turning the very harvests of his husbandry to the account of his astronomy.

If any minds desire to enlarge their views beyond this globe, there is provision for them. Before them is opened a volume of studies arranged on a larger scale. There too what brilliant hints of mystery are given, and yet how obscure. Of all the material creation, the things most zealously studied by the greatest minds, and yet least known, are the starry heavens. Now why, if all science must subserve man's temporal wants alone, why are not these dis

tant mysteries let alone? Yet from the time when men began to study any thing, they have been engaged in studying the skies; and as intent have they ever been upon understanding the magnitudes and motions of the heavenly bodies, as the properties of food and the methods of agriculture. How long have the keenest eyes of philosophy been fixed on those splendid wonders; and yet, for ages, to how little purpose. The early astronomers found out little of what they were anxious to know. Some knowledge, indeed, which they most longed for, eluded their search only by an hair's breadth; and we now see what could be discovered and demonstrated. The true science of the heavens is now proved to have been attainable by man, and is now ascertained. It is spread before the world. It invites examination, correction and improvement. The astronomer now describes and foretels the movements of those distant orbs, and their relative positions at given times. He has stretched his line round the sun, and taken its dimensions. He has measured the orbits of the planets. He pursues, through the depths of the universe, the track of the comet. He has shown by what sure and rapid steps a just philosophy may advance to the discovery and statement of truths which no human mind can comprehend.

These operations while they constitute a genuine process of education, exhibit some of its most striking results. The great facts of astronomy enlarge the conceptions, and allure the mind to the utmost exertion of its power of comprehension; and until the thoughts have accustomed themselves to phenomena displayed on so magnificent a scale, they are incompetent to pursue the science of the starry heavens. We need say nothing farther to make it seem clear to every reflecting mind, that if the Creator in making and arranging the heavens had solely intended to make them instruments and occasions of mental discipline for man, he adopted a perfect plan. What could be better suited to the purposes of exercise and discipline for the human understanding?

If we turn to the intellectual kingdom, what a world of mystery is before us. It seems, in some views, strange that the mind of man, with such a passion as it has for knowing every thing, should have so little satisfactory knowledge of itself. Yet this fact is in perfect keeping with the universal arrangement of things for the use and benefit of mankind. The first subject of inquiry to a serious and reflecting mind is its own nature and operations. Of all subjects this is the most