And we may now consider what has been the effect of the im- 230 provement of natural knowledge on the views of men who have reached this stage, and who have begun to cultivate natural knowledge with no desire but that of "increasing God's honor and bettering man's estate."

*

18. For example: what could seem wiser, from a mere material 235 point of view, more innocent, from a theological one, to an ancient people, than that they should learn the exact succession of the seasons, as warnings for their husbandmen; or the position of the stars, as guides to their rude navigators? But what has grown out of this search for natural knowledge of so merely use- 240 ful a character? You all know the reply. Astronomy,*—which of all sciences has filled men's minds with general ideas of a character most foreign to their daily experience, and has, more than any other, rendered it impossible for them to accept the beliefs of their fathers. Astronomy,—which tells them that this 245 so vast and seemingly solid earth is but an atom among atoms, whirling, no man knows whither, through illimitable space; which demonstrates that what we call the peaceful heaven above us is but that space, filled by an infinitely subtle matter whose particles are seething and surging, like the waves of an angry sea; 250 which opens up to us infinite regions where nothing is known, or ever seems to have been known, but matter and force, operating according to rigid rules; which leads us to contemplate phenomena the very nature of which demonstrates that they must have had a beginning and that they must have an end, but 255 the very nature of which also proves that the beginning was, to our conceptions of time, infinitely remote, and that the end is as immeasurably distant.

19. But it is not alone those who pursue astronomy who ask for bread and receive ideas. What more harmless than the at- 260 tempt to lift and distribute water by pumping it; what more absolutely and grossly utilitarian? But out of pumps grew the

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-232. this stage.

241. Astronomy. Derivation?

What "stage?"

244, 245. the beliefs of their fathers. Show how this is expanded in the subsequent part of the paragraph.

246. atom. Derivation?

259, 260. ask for bread, etc. What is the allusion?

discussions about Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum; and then it was discovered that Nature does not abhor a vacuum, but that air has weight; and that notion paved the way for the doctrine 265 that all matter has weight, and that the force which produces weight is coextensive with the universe,—in short, to the theory of universal gravitation and endless force; while learning how to handle gases led to the discovery of oxygen,* and to modern chemistry, and to the notion of the indestructibility of matter.

270

20. Again, what simpler, or more absolutely practical, than the attempt to keep the axle of a wheel from heating when the wheel turns round very fast? How useful for carters and gig-drivers to know something about this; and how good were it, if any ingenious person would find out the cause of such phenomena, 275 and thence educe a general remedy for them! Such an ingenious person was Count Rumford; and he and his successors have landed us in the theory of the persistence, or indestructibility, of force. And in the infinitely minute, as in the infinitely great, the seekers after natural knowledge, of the kinds called physical 280 and chemical, have everywhere found a definite order and succession of events which seem never to be infringed.

21. And how has it fared with "Physick" and Anatomy? Have the anatomist, the physiologist, or the physician, whose business it has been to devote themselves assiduously to that 285 eminently practical and direct end, the alleviation of the sufferings of mankind,-have they been able to confine their vision more absolutely to the strictly useful? I fear they are worst offenders of all. For if the astronomer has set before us the infinite magnitude of space, and the practical eternity of the dura- 290 tion of the universe; if the physical and chemical philosophers have demonstrated the infinite minuteness of its constituent parts, and the practical eternity of matter and of force; and if both have alike proclaimed the universality of a definite and predicable order and succession of events, the workers in biol- 295

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-269. oxygen. Etymology?

271-282. How many sentences in paragraph 20? To what type, grammati cally and rhetorically, does each sentence belong?-Who was Count Rumford (277)?

284, 285. Have... themselves, etc. Query as to the plural number. 289-297. For... own. What kind of sentence rhetorically?

ogy have not only accepted all these, but have added more startling theses of their own. For, as the astronomers discover in the earth no centre of the universe, but an eccentric speck, so the naturalists find man to be no centre of the living world, but one amidst endless modifications of life; and as the astronomer 300 observes the mark of practically endless time set upon the arrangements of the solar system, so the student of life finds the records of ancient forms of existence peopling the world for ages, which, in relation to human experience, are infinite. Furthermore, the physiologist finds life to be as dependent for its 305 manifestation on particular molecular arrangements as any physical or chemical phenomenon; and, wherever he extends his researches, fixed order and unchanging causation reveal themselves, as plainly as in the rest of Nature. . . .

22. Such are a few of the new conceptions implanted in our 310 minds by the improvement of natural knowledge. Men have acquired the ideas of the practically infinite extent of the universe and of its practical eternity; they are familiar with the conception that our earth is but an infinitesimal fragment of that part of the universe which can be seen; and that, nevertheless, 315 its duration is, as compared with our standards of time, infinite. They have further acquired the idea that man is but one of innumerable forms of life now existing in the globe, and that the present existences are but the last of an immeasurable series of predecessors. Moreover, every step they have made in natural 320 knowledge has tended to extend and rivet in their minds the conception of a definite order of the universe—which is embodied in what are called, by an unhappy metaphor, the laws of Nature-and to narrow the range and loosen the force of men's belief in spontaneity, or in changes other than such as arise out 325 of that definite order itself.

23. Whether these ideas are well or ill founded is not the question. No one can deny that they exist, and have been the inevitable outgrowth of the improvement of natural knowledge. And if so, it cannot be doubted that they are changing the form 330 of men's most cherished and most important convictions.

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-310-326. Such... itself. In paragraph 22 select all the words of classical origin.