111.111 tigillll. !l|! I I ' l>ll I i'i".i,"', 'Si.' **! lillllllli'lllilllir ,l,lM!li,L ililllillh'll 'iPlll'llilUll I 11;' II. I'''''! ' .liu':,. '!lli „ '' I ^' i"'v'''''i'''i''% y 'j "V" ;'!¦ . •¦"":! ;,!i,' 'i H ;, ¦ 'I i ' ^V, ' "' I i.'ii'i 'i,.i'i iiV :i''i'i' ll'li liiiiii I It m 1) I I >i >..'i 'tlt>i . .i|lll|li{»i> II I I'liiln |t"'l'|!| I III. I '> fl ' I vil ll lllll"'l '' i> l" I'll' ' I' " "'I' ! I !lii 'I 1 1 I "" '' I 'I'M ' I I ' ' ' I' ' ' k\]>'>' 'I ¦ I I'l' Iii.,'l.iltt !i; I']"' ll. 1 ,1 !i|,,'l!|.,ili,ll., 11 liiiilfeiif?^^^ »''*a,,,i.«S I ;, I'i,, , i' I' • '11 l'i!"l^ < liiji j)",' ' I i ii,M r .< (Ifi .1. 4 I' I '' i "^ • ' I ¦.!',;.], , i'"„ ,' ' 'li' " ii!t'^l,\'-»i"i'|||o«,,.r,i , . i:UVm,:;'i -Tf"' «' .''I''1 p ' I'liiB -•• M ' ,;l II ¦'J I jii i i!' iV'/' # (liDi ' .1.1*. ' ||ti ILl I t I., iKfV. ififc'N • ^' ' j;t liii'i'l ".if 11' •?- ifi. ifi>i> ll I 'Mm U\< i| I' , •¦'^f:/-/¦l*||'^^l•*l.Il|«!ilIllJll^lll iljl!¦'!;l/"i'!iil^*^|t,l'''*''-¦'¦ ill j!:!,i:'j.iis,.'j.: '' I '' ' lllJ I'll •' . , '!>>' i.t'ti'Ni I ' I I '*nl ' j.iti;' M| , ,' I 111, illl' liH!l ,1 ';'!ni'iiii!i'!';'i!nr' ¦']! WiM'^'' ' fllM^tti'*' .'%r'',ri''' '^1'" ^ft?"" 'iTf " ifiiiD'iri " 'II fii I , , ¦ I 'I,- ii„i ,M«i I ri... • T .1 ; 'i 1 1 , ' /' ¦ I , li, '¦ "i' il !i '' I i ¦ '"I"! ' I " I'l I " I. 1. FROM THE LIBRARY OF JOHN WHITEHEAD1850-1930 PRESENTED TO BY HIS HEIRS NEW CHUUCH ESSAYS on SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION; INCLUDING LITEEATURE AND THE AETS: BT NEW CHURCH WRITERS IN AMERICA AND EUROPE, The Three grand Categories of all Knowledges are — ENDS, or Purposes, CAUSES and EFFECTS. SCIENCE relates to Effects ; PHILOSOPHY to Causes ; and RELIGION to all Ends, Causes and Effects, and teaches us how to unite and use every thing Crood and True in the Spheres of Nature, Humanity, and DIVINITY. PUBLISHED BY OTIS CLAPP, AND CROSBY & NICHOLS, BOSTON. "' FOWLERS & WELLS, AND PARTRIDGE & BRITTAN, NEW YORK. LIPPINCOTT & GRAMBO, AND BOERICKE & TAFEL, PHILADELPHIA TRUMAN & SPOFFOED, AND E. MENDENHAl£, CINCINNATL MORTON & GEISWOLlf, AND JAMES FULTON, LOUISVILLE. Also, by Booksellers and Periodical Dealer's generally. 1854. SCIENCE FOR ALL. BY J. J. G. WILKINSON. Note. — This Lecture- was delivered before a Scientific Asaociatiou in London, whose object is "the study, development, and dissemination of Science, upon the Philosophical Principles of Swedenborg." The idea of the diflusion of knowledge beyond the circle of the learned class, may be said to be almoSt peculiar to the age in which we live. For although it is now some centuries, since what is called publication was effected by the printing press, yet this was a publica tion to those who were already in private possession of the materials of knowledge, and was not much more than the exchange of manu scripts for books. This was undoubtedly an important alteration, fraught with many consequences; but it was never contemplated, at that time, that publication could embrace the whole public. Even Lord Bacon appears to have had but little idea, that knowledge could be fostered by other than princes, or communicated more widely than from one learned body to another. This, however, is probably not the opinion, and certainly it is not the temper, of the present generation. With our " Rights of Man," and other self-evident thoughts and axiomatic phrases, we think that we are as fairly entitled to participate in the advancement of learning, as if we were all clergymen, or initiates, or even monks. It is in vain that we are warned that such and such intellectual dishes " are not good for us : " we insist tipon tasting and judging for ourselves ; and we sit down with all imaginable familiarity at the same table with the savans. We, who have stood so long behind their chairs, neither venturing to understand nor to smile, still less to mingle in the enter tainment, are suddenly taught our rights and dignities, and moved to claim a dogmatical equality with our former masters, and, pursuantly, to share the feast, and enjoy the circumstance and freedom of the social board. Nevertheless, as we are not completely acquainted with the manners or phra.ses of the learned, we require helps in both cases ; and these helps, in general terms, consist in " the diffusion of knowledge." Those who have taught us this lesson, so hard to be unlearned ; those who have taught us to think in this novel fashion, — have, to say the least of it, shown a laudable anxiety to fit us for our new position. Societies of charitable and energetic men, presiding over Useful and over Christian knowledge, have circulated manuals, at a small cost, on the one hand, to enable us to sustain our rightful dignity with learned laymen; on the other, to cherish our endangered humility after the most approved manner of the clergy. The result is, upon the whole, that we feel ourselves nearly on a level with our teachers in both these particulars; and class knowledge, and class clericity even, are declared to be abolished ; for every man is not only a pro fessor, but also a clergyman in posse, as indeed Luther taught long ago, (5) b SCIENCE FOR ALL. But without dwelling too much upon our rights, which are apt to be barren where we cannot enforce them, it is obvious that the end for which knowledge was sought and recorded by the learned, and the end for which it is required by the multitude, are not the same, but different ends. I am now speaking espeoially of knowledge or science, and not so much of applied knowledge, or of the useful arts. The ends being different, the knowledge gathered by, and for, the one end, is not so serviceable as might be thought for the purposes of the other. Hence the choicest viands of the savans prove rather insipid and indigestible to the common world ; and thus, like all servants, we are less content than our rtiasters with ordinary fare. We stand upon our infinite rights and wants, while t/iey are glad to put up with the best food that can be had. The truth is, that the passion of learning, which has presided over the accumulation, and to a great extent, over the formation of the sciences, aims rather at increasing intellectual property in a few hands, and transmitting it unimpaired from generation to generation, than in farming it out with a simple regard to the public service. It is the love of private possession in its compound form. All the ten ements, plantations, fences, and other arrangements of such intellect ual estates, are especially adapted for the system of individual pro prietorship, and would be useless under a different mode of tenure. On the other hand, the awakened desire for knowledge in the un learned world, — at least, all that is peculiar in that desire, is the evidence of a state which condemns the largest fruits of the system hitherto, as poor and unsatisfactory ; which twits the learned with unsolved problems, with public and private calamities ; and, in a word, which measures humaii wants and attractions, against that small measure of satisfaction and fulfilment which the present con dition can afford them. It is in vain that the learned demand to be judged by their own peers, and by their own intentions; it is in vain that they point to the deep ruts of learning, or plead that its posses sions are not impaired in their keeping ; that simple enlargement and accumulation have been their object from the beginning. These pleas are but a new aggravation of the difference, already so great between them and their new judges and familiars. In a word, the very intentions of the two classes are toto cosh contrarious. This might undoubtedly be an excellent occurrence ; for the variety of ends, compatibly with their harmony and true subordination is the very enrichment of the human race. It may, however, be doubted whether the benignant diffusers of knowledge have taken sufficient account of it in their praiseworthy endeavors. They seem to imagine that the difference between the passion of the learned for knowledge and the passion of the unlearned, is simply the difference between great and small ; that the one is a large passion, and the other a lesser one for the same object; that the broken meat of the rich man's table is food made easy for the poor man's ; that hard and dry sciences will be soft and succulent when presented in small pieces ; that if a learned memory can hold a thousand disconnected facts, an unlearned memory must be tenacious enough to retain a tenth or a hundredth part of them. SCIENCE FOR ALL. / Never, however, were they more mistaken. The general reader or inquirer cannot retain with ease and comfort more than a bare exception of the facts which constitute the peculium of learning; unless indeed, he find occasion to employ them in the business of life ; in which case they pass from the sciences into the sphere of the arts. Otherwise, they are foreign bodies in his mind, somewhat irri tating for a time, but soon ejected or forgotten. The contrary opinion arises from a very common ignorance of the multiplicity of human parts ; in other words, from a great want of observation, with which, as respects whatever is largest and most obvious, the learned are much more chargeable than the vulgar. For the genera of memory are as various as the genera of man, and have distinct objects, and are sub ject to different excitements. It is evident that scholars, in all ages, have had the greatest delight in the accumulation of learning ; and this delight, so little attended to, yet so keenly pursued, is the secret spring and power of their memory. What we love, that we can remember. On the other hand, it is equally clear from the facts of the case, that the new class, whom this age calls to participate in the sciences, has no mere love of learn ing, and consequently no memory for its details. But as memory lies at the basis of education, the question becomes important, whether ninety-nine hundredths of the human family are therefore to be ex cluded from the benefits and blessings of the knowledge of natural truths; whether they are condemned to take a few generalities on trust from others, to the exclusion of those multifarious particulars which give weight and consistency to the understanding of the sciences. This is a question which the diffusers of knowledge have not pro posed to themselves, much less attempted to answer. The scientific world has a pleasure in its science, and therefore retains it in mind ; the general public is attracted to other objects, and scientific facts are faintly apprehended with whatever effort, and are no sooner heard than they fade from the recollection. The promoters of education appear to have a serious obstacle here, which requires their primary regard. It must not, however, be thought that even the scientific memory is remarkable for strength and retentiveness. Putting out of sight the mathematical and mechanical sciences, and their dependences, it may fairly be asserted that the greater part of the other sciences is held by books, and not by living memories. It is true that there are, in Europe and America, a few dozens of professors, who, by dint of perpetual repetition, have imprinted on their recollections immense stores of facts, which they can reproduce at pleasure, almost without an effort of thought. But in these cases, the memory is too often de veloped at the expense of the active faculties ; and besides they are so rare, and, though we take in the whole planet, so easily enumerated, that they only prove, by their single tall heads, how many memories of smaller stature are sleeping an unknowing sleep under the oblivious waters. Indeed I am obliged to conclude, from my own experience, as well as from the observations of others, that in the noblest of the physical sciences, I mean physiology, the scientific memory is lethargic and oppressed ; while the public memory refuses to hold, even for a 8 SCIENCE FOR ALL. brief hour, any considerable number of the details of that important subject. The literary class is especially to be pitied for the awkward position which it occupies in relation to the sciences. With every motive to refresh the mind from the deeper fountains of nature, and to cultivate a sincere amity with the votaries of all knowledge, the literary man, by his very education, by the refinement of his tastes, by his appre ciation of beauty, by his practical grasp of the value of order, by the habitude of appealing to the human heart, is incapacitated for enter taining dry, dull, and juiceless subjects, and consequently is for the most part singularly ignorant, and not seldom hostile to the prosecu tion of the sciences. If there be a series in the art of forgetting, if oblivion can attain different velocities, then we should say, that the man of letters, generally remarkable for studious habits and retentive ness of mind, has the shortest memory of all for scientific particulars ; that he forgets them with a power and rapidity far surpassing that of other men. It appears then, that the experience which supplies the materials of all our knowledge, is, from some cause, ill adapted to the first faculty which is destined to receive it ; that the memory refuses to retain the greater part of those facts which ought to nourish the intel lect ; and furthermore it is found that in proportion as the facts are related to the living or organic kingdoms, in the same proportion they are indigestible, and their stay in the mind is short and unsatisfactory. What is the resolution of this knotty difficulty ? Is the common memory ill constructed, or has it been wrenched, or become diseased 1 Or, on the other hand, may we resort to so daring an explanation, as to afiirm that the particulars of the sciences are not worthy or proper food for the unsophisticated human powers ? As to the fact itself, I believe the largest portion of every miscel laneous audience will fully bear me out. Who has not tried, with a painstaking almost amounting to martyrdom, to read, and carry away, the information contained in works on Botany, Zoology, Or ganic Chemistry, Comparative and Human Physiology ? Who has not tried to persuade himself, or herself, of their interest and value ? And who has not miserably failed in the attempt ; and though he commenced with a will strong as Hercules, yet, after a brief space, has he not slunk away from the distasteful duty, with his mind emp tied of all motives to renew the enterprise ? For, like a tired horse which has been once overdriven, or, as the vulgar saying is, dead- beaten on a particular road, the mind no sooner finds itself on a track which suggests a parallel experience, than it becomes obstinate, restive, and immovably stationary, or only active in retracing its steps, and quitting the compulsion of the journey. I know indeed of no task at all comparable in difficulty and hope lessness, to that of really publishing or popularizing the present sci ences of observation, so as to make them apprehensible and retainable by the world at large, unless it be that other task of propagating the current notions and doctrines of Christendom among heathen nations. If there are no degrees in mere impossibility, then the one achieve ment is as impossible as the other. Those who are in immediate contact with the missionaries, and who are the favored recipienta of SQIENCE FOR ALL. » coins, tools, or blankets, may learn by rote a few formularies, and repeat them when bidden and rewarded, just as those who live in the central glow and focus of Mechanics' Institutes may retain for a longer or shorter time a few of the details of the sciences ; but to expect the English, or any o,ther people, to be converted to Botany, or Zoology, or Physiology, as those branches of knowledge are at present taught, is as wild as to expect the conversion of the Hindoos, or Australians, or Hottentots, as nations, to the received doctrines of Protestantism or Catholicism. The fact is, that the African, Asiatic, and American Indian, cannot learn the Christianity of the churches ; and not only are the same great divisions unable to learn or remember the science of the schools, but this incapacity extends to by far the larger part of our own male population, and to the better half of Europe besides ; of course I mean the ladies. I might indicate without difficulty, a series of other unfortunate predicaments in the existing sciences, considered as the means of public education, or as capable of being generally diffused ; but it is quite sufficient to show that they are hetefogeneous with the exer cise of memory, and that by a natural necessity, ordinary mortals find themselves thinking about something else when these dry specimens of knowledge are taught or discussed. For if the mind refuses to house or hold them, if they are dismissed from the very threshold, how can they ever be imbodied in the human constitution, or partake of the deeper life of the affections or the understanding? If they gave pleasure, or even pa,m, they would then be remembered by their effects ; but, causing apathy, weariness, and sleep, it is no wonder that ordinary dreams should leave a more vivid impression, and enter more into the tissue and connections of the workday world. There is, however, one consequence flowing from the difficulty which even the learned experience in recollecting the facts of the or ganic sciences, and which is not unworthy of our consideration, because it furnishes some reason why those sciences remain so barren of principles or generalizations. It is clear, that although the memory is in itself a comparatively passive faculty, yet as the receptacle of all the materials upon which the understanding is to work, its enrich ment with multitudes of well collected instances and particulars,. representing in a prerogative manner the just divisions of each subject,. is quite necessary to the constructive exertions of the other and more active powers. For the building of the sciences, the rational mind. must have a ready servant in the imagination, which is the spirit of the memory; and the imagination must have all its subordinates ready to present themselves, as it were spontaneously, as the intuitions of the reasoning mind flash through and stir the lower brain of the memory. But when the greater portion of knowledge on any subject is laid on the shelves of our libraries, in place of furnishing our recol lections, how can the imagination do its own rapid work upon it, so that the result shall appear to be the native offspring of the human mind ? The just intermediate is wanting ; one part of the process has not been performed ; it is as though the architect had the labor and responsibility of hewing from the quarry the stones which ought to have been ready to his hand. Thus it is that sciences formed under such a state of things, whatever abundance of facts may exist in the 2 10 SCIENCE FOR AUL. world, how multiple and how faithful soever books may be, will still be laid upon a small basis of particulars, and will exhibit a prepon derance bf unchecked and shapeless imagination, without however, developing integral views, or taking in the whole compass of the given subject. This, I greatly fear, is the case with much of that knowledge which finds so difficult an abiding-place at present in our vulgar brains. But the question recurs. Where is the fault? Is the shortness of our memory to be laid to our own stupidity ; or to a wrong concep tion of our rights in relation to the sciences ? II either of these suppositions be accepted, there is an end to further attempts at the diffusion of knowledge. I believe that the main explanation is to be sought elsewhere. I justify the badness of our memories by alleging the badness of the materials which are offered to them. Facts are indeed facts, but in nature they occur in a certain order, and out of that order are fantastic and artificial : that order invests them with a beauty that is the highest object of sense, shorn of which, their native face is obliterated, and we cannot attend to them. Facts also take for granted, principles homogeneous with the principles of the human mind ; and if these are ignored or disregarded, the soul and motive of the sciences die. Now the data of the sciences are laboring under this triple disfranchisement, and this is the reason of that secret con sciousness which we all feel of an inability to receive them, even at a time when the necessity for knowledge is greatest, and the thirst intense ; and when duty, not less thin interest, prompts us to seek instruction wherever it may be found. If this be the fault, or a principal fault, what then is the remedy for it? Are a catholic science and a catholic theology both impos sible, putting all dogmatism and infallibility out of the question ? I think it will be answered, that a catholic theology, at all events, may exist, nay does~ exist; that there is one creed now in the world, which is capable of being taught to all colors and races of men ; that there is one religion which may take up serpents, , and they shall not harm it ; which may absolve false doctrines grounded in ignorance, and lead the heathen world, by even its wildest superstitions, through an easy and continuous path, to the temple of its own worship, and the shrine of its own invisible but human God. And are we to despair of a catholic science, answering to the catholic theology ? Let us answer. No ! with all our might. Let us take that exceptional portion of it which is now in the world, as a sure promise that the whole is coming. Let us accept our own faith in the issue, and our own deep want of natural truth, as the prophecies of human nature, that the everlasting doors of the world are about to be opened, and to be thronged by no partial procession, but by all God's children of either sex, and of every age and rank and grade and clime. But if, to doubt of the sure advent of this integral and unexcep tionable knowledge of nature, would be to doubt of Providence, and to reject our own profoundest intuitions and instincts, we have still to consider what are the avenues to it; or, in other words, as we said before, what is the remedy for the present state. This must undoubt edly be sought in a new method, wielded by those new affections which are inwardly prompting the whole world to an unwonted quest SCIENCE FOR ALL, 11 of knowledge, and which have also animated and supported the present " diffusers," however unsuccessful they may have been. Let us then, consume a few moments, in regarding the main parts of that scientific instrument, through the curious and manifold glass of which we expect to discern unthought-of beauties, wonders, and advantages in the old domains of nature. These are, the doctrine of series and degrees, for the understanding ; the doctrine of ends, representing the affections ; the presence of nature by its inherent beauty and attractiveness, to the mind, that is to say, to the imagination working in the memory ; and for the senses, the uninjured faces, and play and activity of things, conciliated and disarmed of fear by our gentle intentions, and brought to light in troops and new myriads by the loving eye which knows where to look for them, or by the tender hand which can softly extract them from their warm hiding-places, and return them to the lap of the migl^ty mother, without a ruffled feather or a beating heart. With these means added to those which are in use already, the time has come, when we may look upon " things as they are in themselves," without confounding the harsh results of our own waywardness with the fair and rounded works of the divine creation. The path of instruction is ever from the known to the Mwknown, and this is well exemplified in the true method of studying the works of nature. All human experience proves that things occur in a cer tain distinctive mode, and that they are present one after another, or present together with a difference of position, so as to occupy time and space. In other words, the general fact of order in nature is the largest vessel or conception, into which all our experiences flow. Now this fact, which we know so well, must be the starting point from which we advance to acquire those deeper views of the same subject, of which hitherto we are ignorant. In the first place, then, let us so make up our minds that there is an order in creation, as that no scepticism shall afterwards insinuate itself during the farther stages of our progress; and having gained this affirmation, and taken it as a principle, let us steadily pursue it through all its deductions, as well as continually fill and enrich it afresh from experience ; by which means we shall emulate nature in carrying on both synthesis and analysis at once, and finally weave the science of method into a solid form. In this manner, the common notion of order will, by cultivation, put forth the" bright doctrine of series and degrees, at once the key of nature, and the genuine constitution of the human understanding ; for order is heaven's first law, and the analysis of order is the universal doctrine of series. As therefore series is coextensive, and, I might almost say, synony mous with both nature and intelligence, so is it the one means and avenue of the sciences, and may be illustrated by whatever is known, or thought, or believed, by the mind of man. From the first line of abstract mathematics, to the most complex substance of our living organism, we meet with nothing but successive and progressive and simultaneous series ; with nothing but subordination and coordina tion ; with nothing but rank and due precedence, and that natural justice by which all things have their proper places, and stand in mu- 12 SCIENCE FOR ALL, tual relations to their fellow-creatures. So true is it, as Swedenborg says, that " there is nothing in the visible world, but is a series, and in a series ; for whithersoever we turn our attention, we observe mere series, beginning in the first, and ending in the first. Mere series, and series of series, constitute arithmetic, geometry, physics, physiology, nay, all philosophy. The public administration of government, not less than the conduct of private affairs, has its own form and succes sive order, and therefore consists of series. By series we speak, we reason, and we act ; nay, our very sensations are series of varieties, more or less harmonious, which result in a common affection, and successively in images, ideas, and reasons. In equality, on the other hand, where there is no series, nature perishes." [Economy of the Animal Kingdom, Part I., n. 586.) But perhaps it may be thought that something abstruse and diffi cult is implied in the conception of series; and as this would be the first step to misunderstanding the doctrine, it may be well, before proceeding, to give one or two homely illustrations of it ; in order to prove that we are all, at this moment, in possession of the truth as an ordinary fact, however little we may have a scientific hold of the ab stract law and its innumerable consequences. For this is the one aim of a real science, not to teach us any thing heterogeneously novel, but to deepen common into universal sense, and make us know precisely, and in principle, what we already feel and know perforce, as a needful condition of our inhabiting the earth. It is, in a word, to develop and expand our given faculties in all directions, and to multiply ac cordingly their similar and successive parts. Now let our first instance be a straight line, conceived to be gener ated by a point; for example, by the point of a pencil. Here it is at once manifest, that such a line consists of a succession or series of points ; and the same remark is clearly applicable to every outline in space. Nay, it holds as certainlyin a higher degree of every surface and every solid, in each of which new series come to be considered. Thus, if the line is a series of points, the surface is a series of lines, and the solid is a series of surfaces, one upon another ; and, in its turn, has a series of angles. Thus, space itself is nothing but series, and hence the declaration, that geometry is "constituted of mere series. So much then for that science, which is the fulcrum and skeleton of all the other sciences. We find that it is pervaded by the omnipresent principle of series. But the law is more richly attested than this, in the living spheres of knowledge. Let us look at any organ in the animal body, and we shall find, in the first place, that it has parts, and that these parts are again subdivisible into lesser or least parts ; in a word, there is a series of components, from the least to the whole. The entire organs again form a series amongst themselves, and so make up the body. The faculties of the mind are another row or series, extending from the body to the soul. Human beings, thus growing from their parts, are still more distinctly a series. All parts, in a word, are the parts of a series ; and therefore the finite being, or the finite universe, falls of necessity under the serial law, from one end to the other. The per ception of this, by every individual, is so strong and intuitive, that to attempt to illustrate it, seems almost as difficult as to prove that one SCIENCE FOR ALL. 13 and one make two ; or any other self-evident proposition. This per ception is the basis of the scientific truth of series ; and the whole matter lies, not in gaining it, but in holding it fast with the mind, in the present perplexed state of our knowledge of method. But a simple law which comprehends the universe, if new to us as a law, may well alter our minds in many essential particulars, and such is undeniably the case vs-'ith the doctrine of series. For what does it assert? Nothing short of this, that our very minds them selves, so long regarded as rigidly simple substances by those too nu merous philosophers who have sought to make simpletons of us. Involve a series, and are in a series : nay, that the very law of series is itself a series, and admits of a triple analysis ; or I should rather say, of an analysis as long and multiple as we please. This is some thing very like a demolition of the snug hiding-places of philosophers ; at all events it is an intellectual fire, which melts away some of the hardest nodules of metaphysical difficulties, and forestalls much future logic upon similar indurations of thought. The first task which it enjoins upon us, in considering any subject, after we have made a full enumeration of its facts, is to remember, and expect to find, that the subject falls into a natural series, with the parts so different from each other, that the variety in each shall justify the place which it occupies in the row. A well-developed law of series might be likened to a cabinet of boxes, on which the probable general divisions of things should be marked; and as each object presented itself, its phenomena would be distributed into their proper cells, the whole group of which would contain an approximation to an integral disposition of the subject. Furthermore, as in many cases it might be impossible to fill all the required compartments, so the details of the series would serve to anticipate future advances of science, by demonstrating the empty spaces in knowledge. In this way the doctrine would be as a staff in the hand of genius, and would lead to guesses of undoubted significance, and sharpen the intellect ual eye for coming events and growing natures, at the same time that it stimulated the heart with a vernal breath of new wants, and of new gifts to satisfy them from the hand of the Creator.' At all events, the absence of this doctrine has made itself known in a desolating manner, in the modern sciences. They are for the most part, examples of simplicity as opposed to series ; and hence they are no sooner touched by series, than their heads separate from their bodies ; or in other words, their facts gasp, and give up their unfortunate hypotheses. This is remarkably exemplified in the laborious computations of the age of the earth, with which geology furnishes us. According to this science (and I have no wish to speak with disrespect of a branch of practical knowledge so useful, and so rich in facts), it is difficult to assign too long a duration to the existence of our planet. Once emancipated from the literality of Genesis, it delights to heap mil lions upon millions of years, as though time were a mere abstraction, and Sost science nothing ; and by a number of watermarks and de posits, it fixes the epoch of the world, with as knowing an air as if it were judging of a horse's age by his teeth. There is, however, an 14 SCIENCE FOR ALL, old saying, that " there are a great many things go to all things," which indeed is precisely the assertion of series. Are not these mil lions of ages, to say the least of it, founded upon the assumption of the simplicity of the terrestrial movement, without any consideration of a number of facts and analogies which go to a complete view of the subject ? A hundred strata would take so long for deposition now, therefore they would require the same time in the earliest ages of the world. Such is the postulatum of geology. How would this logic look, if we were to try it upon any of those series of which we know both the beginning and the end; and where, if we commit an error, we have the advantage of detecting it ? Let us make an ex periment of the kind with a human being, with a youth of twenty years old. Now the problem shall be, to find his age from his height, given the height of his last year's growth at half an inch. We will suppose, for the sake of a round number, that he is six feet high. Proceeding then on the simplistic law, that the last year's growth fur nishes the whole rule of his development, and not merely that part of the same which applies between the years of 19 and 20, we have only to say, by the rule of three, that if he grows half an inch in one year, he will grow 72 inches, or six feet, in 144 years ; whence it turns out that the youth of 20 ought, in science, to be more than seven times 20. Supposing again, that he grows a quarter of an inch between 20 and 21, the same method will prove, that instead of hav ing merely reached his majority, he has attained the patriarchal age of 288 years. If we take him between 21 and 22, the probability is that we shall find no increase at all ; and in strict keeping with our geological logic, we may now infer, (what many a philosopher has not hesitated to infer of the world,) that our youth is not only older than the wandering Jew, but in point of fact has existed, as the glib saying is, from all eternity. But this is absurd ; and similarly absurd are the consequences of the denial of series of series, in any of the other laws or parts of nature. And here it may be observed, that human life furnishes us with the best type of the law of series. Infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old age, these, in their wonderful continuity, variety and combination, are the flower and fruit of the mundane system. In each individual, we see the unbroken line of a life-series, we see a different form, function, and velocity at different points of the line, and finally, by the presence in the mind of all that has preceded, and the outward sym pathy of old age with childhood, we see the series become compound or circular, and return into itself by death, but only to commence anew, and to fulfil the law of progress and mirror the image of God, by an immortal perpetuity of the principles of order. One of the great benefits accruing from the recognition of series is this, that it brings in its train an unfailing belief in the doctrine of universal analogy. For the finite creation, which includes in one, man and nature, can only be a series, by a mutual relation between all its parts, by virtue of which every thing has its own place, and cannot, at a given time, occupy any other. And as the belief in a unity of principle in nature, lies at the root of a possibility of attain ing general and universal laws, so the distribution of harmonies by SCIENCE FOR ALL, 15 series, is all with reference to one end, or what is the same thing, to a series of ends, which, in the bosom of their unanimity and _ hearty cooperation, are veritably one. The varieties of nature, therefore, %re but different illustrations of one manifold principle. Some things present the principle more openly than others, constituting as it were the face of nature ; in some it is hidden under various garments, which also have their offices, and are woven and assumed, every one, according to the same gradual rule which regulates all the unbounded munificence of the Creator. Moreover, series not only includes co ordination of things, but their subordination also ; and their subordi nation is not simply a precedence which some existences take of others, but it demonstrates that the lower have sprung from the higher, and are indeed their produce. Thus the universe is seen to be con nected from end to end, and- from above to below, and all things in illustrating one principle also illustrate each other. What is com pressed and involved and a unit in the higher sphere, becomes ex panded and developed and distinctly various in the region below ; and thus the lower is intended to enrich our knowledge of the higher with variety, and the higher to give life, oneness and combination to our conceptions of the lower. All things are to be enriched, according to their own measure of appropriation', with the predicates of all things, in order that a certain universality may endow the whole body of the sciences, and every nature proffer its torch to light up, with a first light, some obscure chamber in the faculties of man. The means to this consists in the perception of analogies, which enable us to move with rapid feet over great tracts of knowledge, from the least parts of things, to the least parts of society, or to human beings, and to the whole collective man, and to the great atoms of nature ; I mean, the universes. For all these are in a series, and shed light upon each other, and their laws are only different, because the modes are various in which they subserve the one end of the divine love. But as the end is the same, so they are all analogous, because they are all work ing it out. Therefore, whatever we find in one thing in one manner, exists we know in all things after the manner of each ; whence we revert once more to the great law, that every thing is in a series, and is a series. Thus series conducts us to analogy, and analogies lead us deeper into series. The intuition of both these laws has doubtless been always in the world, for if they were lost entirely, the human mind would be par alyzed. Thus an old writer, one of those called a mystic, has the following thought : " When," says he, " I take up a stone or clod of earth and look upon it ; then I see that which is above, and that which is below, yea, the whole world therein ; onely that in each thing one property' hapneth to be the ehiefest and manifest ; according to which it is named ; all the other properties are joyntly therein ; onely in distinct degrees and centres, and yet all the degrees and centres are but one onely centre ; there is but one onely root whence all things proceed." {Mysterium Magnum, chap, ii.) In which dictum, honest Jacob Behmen gives no contemptible statement of the ground of series and degrees. The lively interest which series extends to every object that comes IG SCIENCE FOR ALL, within its reach, has been illustrated in a simple manner by a modern writer. " Various authors," says he, " have proclaimed the powers of» progressive arrangement and connection : it gives a charm even to things which would otherwise be destitute of it. For example, we see with indifference a collection of half a dozen children ; but if we learn that they are six brothers, of the respective ages of 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 years, and proportionably related in figure and height, the progressive connection thus made, known, lends them an unexpected interest. If three other brothers join them, of the ages of 4, 5 and 6, and form a series connected to the first, the interest increases, and is reflected on the three new comers : they become trebly more interest ing than they would have been alone. The charm will increase in the same ratio if three more brothers of the family, of the ages of 13, 14 and 15 join the band, and form a new series, or another wing to the centre consisting of the six first, " If with these twelve brothers, we compare twelve other children who are deprived of the graduated relation of brotherhood, we shall find that the sight of the latter twelve will excite comparatively no interest. Thus graduation gives a special charm to the most indiffer ent things ; and indeed the learned must have been well convinced of this, for they all abide by Horace's maxim : ' Tantum series junctu- raque pollet,' &c., (' So great is the power of series and connection ; ') and endeavor in every way, to classify the details of nature and art in degrees and series." This is a happy and an easy illustration of the novel pleasure which series confers upon all objects, in which pleasure we cannot fail to see a new hope for the common memory, of retaining, if not the present facts, at all events those more numer ous facts which series itself brings to light. Before I close these superficial commendations of this weighty doctrine, I wish to direct your attention for a moment, to the ill effects which have arisen from the use of single methods in the sciences, where in truth, a number of different methods are needed, proper to each phrase and division of the subject in hand. These effects may be shown even in that first stage of science, which consists in the col lection or simple addition of facts. Now what are the present facts of physiology, and where do they come from ? We answer, that they are almost entirely the produce of the dissecting room. Hence the doctrine of physiology is a city of the dead, a scientific necropolis. It is true, that anatomy is the first resort of physiology ; that it gives us the bodily shapes as nothing else can do. But besides bare anat omy, are there no other means of exploring the body ? Are the bodily senses to be expected to exhaust that machine, of which those senses are themselves amongst the lowest powers ? Is there not a series of senses of which reason is one, and does not reason deal with the ac tions and fruits of things, as corporeal sense takes cognizance of their passions and surfaces ? Wherefore then, should the motions and works of the different organs not furnish their own quota to the foun dations of physiology ? It is to be observed that the uses, effects actions, movements or works of things, are far more richly illustrative of their secret natures, than are their shapes or appearances. Hence Swedenborg commences his greatest physiological treatise with these SCIENCE FOR ALL. 17 memorable words : "The use, or effect," says he, "which produces the end, must be the first object of^ analytic inquiry. The nature of the member or organ is known from the use. The use determines what the organ is in itself, or in its own form ; what it is, in series, with other organs which are contiguous to it or surround it, and which continuously precede and continuously follow it ; and what it is, in order, with those which are above and below, or prior and pos terior to it. All these, and their uses, indicate the nature of the organ under investigation. The use and end are the first things that mani fest themselves ; the end being all in all in every stage of the progress from first to last; the very soul of the thing." [The Animal King dom, considered anatomically, physically and philosophically, n. 32, vol. i., p. 33.) It is therefore the uses of things which constitute the rtoblest materials for induction, and the movements which produce them serve afterwards, by their investigation, to carry detail into our general knowledge of the uses. As it is, however, the minutiae and subtleties of anatomy are used as instruments to invalidate our com mon knowledge of uses, and as the given uses are not taken for granted, so the motions or activities which produce them, are not inquired into, or even suspected to exist. It is therefore a melancholy fact, that, in all physiological works, with the single exception of Sweden borg's, it is only the passivity, sleep, rest or death of the body which is represented, and by no means that one distinctive endow ment which it possesses, of life and motion. But what, think you, would be the condition of chemistry, if the chemists spent their time in scraping and sawing and filing natural bodies, and looking at the little fragments, first on the one side and then on the other, with the naked eye and with the microscope, without trying to ascertain their actions and combinations with other bodies, or putting them through a series of circumstances, in which each substance can show its vir tues by effecting some change in other substances, and undergoing some alteration in its own accidental or essential conditions ? Such a collection of chemical facts might be an envied possession for the virtuoso, and constitute perhaps no mean lining for a cabinet in some curious man's drawing room, but I suspect it would find a much lower value and place in the mansion of the sciences. And so it must be with anatomy and physiology, considered as parts of the understanding of nature. In this regard their value is small, and they are to be looked upon merely as incentives to some of the mildest forms of monomania, and their votaries numbered with other collect ors of autographs, coins, seals, shells, and other odd or agreeable things, which yet are far from useless for more purposes than their owners dream. But surely it hardly requires a word to prove, that the use of things is what explains the form. When once we know what a thing is for, we may see at a glance how its various parts contribute to the end. As soon as we are aware that a cljair is meant to sit upon, the induc tion comes spontaneously, that the feet are to support it at a certain height corresponding to our own ; that the back is to lean against ; that the arms are for rests to the human arms ; and so forth. But without a practical knowledge of the use, an arm chair would be an o 18 SCIENCE FOR ALL, inscrutable mystery. Still more so if we became impatient with it, and anatomized it to discover its purpose ; and still more so, if we followed the microscopists, and sought its secret by resolutely planing it into fine shavings. Not, however, that the most searching analysis is wrong, after the common use is so laid hold of that we can retain it throughout ; in which case, even the microscopical view becomes beautifully illustrative of the general truth, and indeed necessary to its fulness. I wish to infer„from these remarks, that the investigation of nature requires a series of methods, and also that the effects and uses of liv ing bodies are the fir.st points for analytical inquiry, according to that gospel truth, " by their fruits ye shall know them." For actions de monstrate the inner being, but shape is an appearance which represents but a single position and a moment of time. There is as much dif ference between the study of uses and the study of mere shape, as between our knowledge of a man from his full lifetime, and our knowledge of him from a portrait or a statue. Among the present fruits of the doctrine of series and degrees, as wielded by the master mind of Swedenborg, we may enumerate the establishment of many facts, which have been for thousands of years no more than transient and untenable intuitions in other hands. Such, for example, is the real existence of the elemental kingdom of nature, which Swedenborg was the first to demonstrate. Such also is the real existence of the spirituous and nervous fluids in the animal body, or the higher parts of the blood series ; which, although long felt to be rationally necessary in the sciences, continually eluded the human mind, and perished over and over again in the pits of scepti cism, until the hand of series led them to a throne where they are supported by all the facts and substances of the human organization. In many and many cases too, the doctrine of series led this author to discoveries, to which even the most speculative geniuses had never inclined, nay, to which the poets themselves, the early chanticleers of scientific truth, had given no voice in all their salutations of the morning. Such, for instance, was the doctrine of the animation of the brain, synchronous with the respiration of the lungs, the greatest psychical and physiological fact of our bodily existence, and indeed the first fruits of the soul's intercourse with nature. Such also was the discovery of the office of the respiratory movements, in supplying motion to all the organs and parts of the brain, or in distributing the attractions of all things in the body, according to their destined uses. The latter doctrine, of organic gravitation, is indeed one counterpart to the Newtonian discovery of material gravitation ; and even more suggestive and useful to the mind than the magnificent generalization of our great countryman. For it not only demonstrates attraction, but dives to its proximate and remote mechanical causes, in the spira- tion of those atmospherical and ethereal correspondents, the lungs and the brains. The law of series also tends to the catholicity of knowledge, and by causing us to expect the truth, not of one, but of a variety of the ories, each be it observed in its proper place, it inclines us to look away from controversies, and to believe that other inquirers, and above SCIENCE FOR ALL. 19 all, other ages, may have been right in their particular statements, and may deserve to have a few keys allotted them in perpetuity in the grand harmoneon of scientific truth. Miserably indeed have we failed hitherto, in our acceptance of well-meant efforts and bright intuitions different from our own. Even at present the labors of past centuries are thrown away as so much waste paper, although we are forced to admit that the genius of former times was in no way inferior, but in some respects, and especially in the grasp of large, and what we often wrongly call vague truths, more than equal to our own. But a time may yet come when the law of series shall reconcile the vortices of Kepler with the gravitation of Newton, and the mechanico-philosoph- ical truths of Aristotle with the laws of motion so rigidly proved, and so hardly insisted upon, in modern times ; when flesh will cover the dry bones of mathematics and mechanics, and flexibility and beauty and common sense will not be thought irreconcilable with exactness of knowledge. But if the law of series is equivalent to the order and distribution of nature, or to the form of things, the question still comes, what is the genuine matter and substance of the sciences ? For laws and forms imply things or substances; and principles or beginnings are even more important than series or derivations. It is very obvious that the advancement of the human mind in the right direction, is the only ultimate end which can be alleged for the cultivation of the sci ences, and- therefore that they are formed primarily, for the use of that which is primary in man. Were it not so, it is inconceivable that man could have any end or motive for their prosecution. Now this simple truth involves an answer to the question I have just propound ed, and if logically analyzed, yields the proposition, that the ends of • man are the ends of science, and even of nature too, so far as nature can be represented to the human faculties. In short, I conclude from it rigidly enough, that the complex of human purposes, ends, affec tions or loves, is the origin of all knowledge of creation; the one principle of science; the impulse of human intelligence; the end of every subject which- the mind can entertain. To put the matter in a light which is familiar to all of us, the human affections, as the vessels of divine goodness, are the ends of the created universe. I am well aware that many philosophers have been so amazingly cautious, as to suspend their judgment on this theme, and to refuse to start with a belief that every thing in nature has its purpose. This was practically the case with even the great Lord Bacon, who did his best to discredit the doctrine of final causes in the sciences; though he claimed to have pretty distinct ends in writing his own books, and valued his labors precisely in proportion as those ends pervaded them. But as the abnegation of ends from nature, has led to nothing valu able in the sciences, we may pass it over without any other refutation than comes from the success of the opposite course, which is indeed proved to be true by deductions answering to the totality of things. The idea of an end in nature comes of course from the structure of our own minds. We feel and know that in all our bodily actions,, in all our thoughts, there is some end, or in other words, some pro posed delight, and therefore, when we look upon things as thacreation 20 SCIENCE FOR ALL. of God, our whole being affirms that He also had an end in produ cing them. As then, the first conception of nature as an end, springs from our own created minds, so must all the further suggestion which we obtain of ends, be derived from a further knowledge of the ends in ourselves. Or to put the assertion in another form, the analysis of the human loves, as they manifest themselves in fact, is the analy sis of every general idea of purpose, end, affection, passion. Thus the friend, husband, father, citizen, in performing their ends and func tions in their respective capacities, are actually working in and with the principles of creation, and the springs which move them are, as matters of knowledge, the very fountains of universal sciences. Hu man ends are the only ends which are by possibility cognizable to man. Therefore if these are substantially heterogeneous to divine ends, it is in vain to expect that the sciences can have any soul cor responding to the principle of things ; for in this case we are shut up in an under-ground dungeon worse than intellectual idealism, and fenced away not merely by walls, but by hearts of stone from the knowledge and influence of the living God. This brings us to another part of the doctrine of ends, namely, the connection or ratio between the divine and the human. I have already just anticipated the importance of this connection in the study of the sciences. We maintain that it is useless to investigate nature, unless there be a purpose to nature, and this notion of the purpose we gain from our own lives. But what right have we thus to transplant our human faculties into creation, or to attribute them by analogy to God ? I waive the theological answer to this really frivolous ques tion, but in the name of the sciences I reply, that man has no chaice left in the matter ; that if he affirms that nature is good for any thing, that it means any thing,' that by mechanical evolution it answers any purposes and presents any effects, he thereby necessarily attributes human ends, or what is the same thing, humanity, to its author. Ends not human mean nothing for man. If, after this, scepticism insinuates itself without being immediately repelled, the sciences ex pire in vacuo, and the given subject must be commenced anew, or abandoned altogether. I look upon it therefore, that the doctrine of the Divine Humanity, of the real and independent Manhood of God, is the very beginning and root of all knowledge of nature, and that whatever exceeds this doctrine, and whatever falls short of it, is an ¦error and perturbation in scientific first principles, which must vitiate the mind, and carry it awry into a wide limbo of foolishness and corrupt imaginations. So inestimable in its merely scientific value is the historical fact of the incarnation, and the doctrine that in Jesus Christ dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, that it is this fact ¦and doctrine alone, which can make finite man an authorized " min ister and interpreter .of nature." It may easily be foreseen, that these new principles made known in the writings of Swedenborg, and which, under his application, have brought to our doors such an abundant harvest of useful truths, will be far from acceptable to those who have been busied for ages, in reducing knowledge and the knowing faculties to a state of bony hardness and mineral outline ; who have been mistaking the lowest SCIENCE FOR ALL. 21 generals for the highest universals, and leading the descent in the gravitation of the human mind towards the centre of cold death and stiffness in the mathematical point. All the mysticism which they think they have avoided, comes before them again like the apparition of a murdered man, when they see the first shadowy figure of these human truths. " The times have been. That, when the brains were out, the man would die. And there an end ; but now, they rise again, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns. And push us from our stools." The fact is that even now, the temple of science with its cold pave ments and pictureless walls, is haunted by strange presences and un accustomed fears ; and what is remarkable, it is not the so called mystics who are afraid of the future, or at a loss under the new cir cumstances, but the superstitious dread and shrinking are confined to the matter-of-fact men, to the sceptics, and the positive atheists. And perhaps if it were well looked into, it is these classes who are the genuine mystics after all. For though they have lost the play of wisdom, they still retain its gravity. They clutch reputation where still they profess to have nothing to say. They build upon denials as discoveries. To all human questions they answer — Mum ! Where does the human race come from ? — Mum ! Why is it here ? — Mum ! What is its destination ? — Mum ! What are the causes of all phe nomena, or of any one phenomenon ? Again, — Mum ! Certainly they are the most mysterious gentlemen possible, — these Comteists, sceptics, men of positive science, and hardheaded mathematicians. The votaries of theological mystery are not half so mystical ; foi- they believe that all things will be cleared up in another life ; that there is a proper time and place for explanation, only not here or now ; but the positive-science-mystics believe in everlasting mystery. Mystery is their God, their ultimate end, the very substance of their world. They are inexcusable in their dislike to unintelligible dogmas, which, so far as they are self-contradictory, involve negation and mystery similar to their own. Fo^- -as opposite statements neutralize each other and amount to nothing, so those who believe in nothing, are wrong in discarding their own belief when it is thus drawn out in equivalent formulas. But if the reasons I have adduced be not sufficient to invite us to a study of the sciences on the principles of Swedenborg, there is one thing left which may show the expediency of such a step. Existing methods have had their full trial, and have assuredly failed to conduct any man to the threshold of an integral doctrine of nature. We have tried for instance, by putting our brains aside, to attain a pure doc trine with which our own personality should be unmixed ; and the experiment has had no results. We have tried to leave out our com mon knowledge of order, and to present our minds as white paper to nature, and the effect has been mere sensation, such as animals also may enjoy. We have tried to smother the human heart, to put love out of the universe, to obliterate ends from nature, and science has become hideous in its .stark coldness, or a dry mummy, best when 22 SCIENCE FOR ALL, dryest. We have proved by experiment, the tyrannous pedantry of simplistic views, and the impossibflity of gaining truths from the in action of things, as of gaining self-knowledge from the mind, when paralyzed for the investigation of consciousness. All these modes, and many more, have been well explored and e:*perimented, and they have aU failed to give an account of the creation. But what has not been done hitherto is, to begin fairly with our given endowments ; to make the whole education of practical life the basis of our theoretical reasonings; thus to go from the known tothe unknown — from the common uses of things to the mechanism of their causes, and so to their universal uses; to adopt all the -facts of nature's history as the ground of induction and deduction, including of course Christianity as a part of knowledge and experience ; and having once well recog nized the plane of facts, rigorously to exclude scepticism from the very foundation, and without affronting fair doubts, to make tbem the menials and not the masters of inquiry. Nor do I think we are asking any thing foreign to the orthodox spirit of the sciences to grant, when we require that all great facts, truths, means and goods shall pro tempore be taken on their own val uation, that once at least, their deductions may be tried, and their agreement with creation thoroughly tested. If I am not mistaken, it is the ordinary path of knowledge, that consequences and conclusions should be drawn from assumed principles, to prove or disprove the value of those principles, as well as to arm the sense and the mind for new observations. Let us then try what the effect will be, if we suppose, for this inquiry's sake, that the revealed or Human God is the author of nature ; that every thing in nature has an end in Him, and that these various ends are human, and may be known analo gously from our own affections ; that order is the path whereby the Divine Being distributes the creation of ends, and that this order consists of series and degrees, the recognition of which, in their man ifold functions, constitutes the one method of the human understand ing ; also that the senses are the basement of the whole mind as well as of each of its faculties, absolutely necessary to the fulness of ex istence, and capable of representing the inner man with all his wants, nay, intended to give matter and body and ultimate delight and mo tive to the degrees and series of the higher elements of our constitu tion. Let us, I say, take for granted these intelligible data, and rea soning down from them, at the same time that we are reasoning up wards somewhat after the present fashion from isolated particulars, let us see whether any light will visit the darkness of the sciences, or whether the failure of this last resource will prove that the creation is indeed irreconcilable with the mind of man. Of the final success, however, of such a trial, about to be commenced, as I fondly hope, by this scientific Association, it is impossible for us to entertain the slightest doubt. Already, in the vista of a clear futurity, we contem plate its fruits. Already we see intellectual atheism without a foot of earth to support it, ceasing its weedy presence from the fair estates of philosophy; and the knowledge of God, vainly declared impossi ble, constituting the summer and blessing of the sciences. We see the chains of inveterate controversies unriveted, and the multitude SCIENCE FOR ALL. ' 23 of words which foments anger and perplexes understanding, dies into silence before the measured sounds of the day of works. We see the human heart released from the tightness of cruel suspicions, and filled with sunshine by the possibility of regeneration, confidingly pro claiming its real wants as prophecies and promises of a future life, both here and hereafter; and finding in nature an instrument divine ly accommodated for giving the full natural development to the soul ; consequently in science an object and an office as noble as the co operation is noble to so great an end. We see the intellect taking its stand in its new centre, to trace the laws by which the universe re volves around humanity ; to calculate the power and immensity of principles, bright even to the senses, though hitherto known but as points in our sky ; to follow their outgoings without timidity, swiftly and safely, through myriads of series ; but always leaning on use as the reason of things, and offering its gains without reservation for the service of our actual and moral life. We see the imagination, livelier and bolder than of yore, animated by the spirit of truth, and pouring its lifeblood through the memory; and the mempry no longer surfeit ed or starved, but accurately ministering to our edification out of the choicest produce of experience, and nourishing philosophy with the entire variety of the world. We see the growth of a natural pleas ure in the sciences, which shall render the universal memory tenacious for vafid general knowledge, just as the pleasures of learning hereto fore have given strength and retentiveness to a few memories for par ticular facts and details. Finally we behold the senses, filled with perceptions luxuriant as tropical vegetation, yet without a tangle in the romantic multiplicity of their objects, continually receiving fresh stewardships of observation, and a larger income of delights, from the growing needs and affections of the soul. Such to say very little, and that little on the least fruitful or the intellectual side, is what must be expected irt a Providential world, from the principles of knowledge correctly apprehended, and well applied to nature. Such, in hope overcoming fear, is the proximate end of which I look for the beginning from the members of this Association. Your work is be fore you, grand yet definite. To give the human race intellectual food when the old means of sustenance is failing; to make the basis of mental life alike for all, sufficient for all, and better for all ; to be the missionaries, not of words or dogmas, but of methods and benig nant arts ; neither of cajoleries nor anathemas, but of desired Pros perity ; to marry the universe to the understanding, and connect all things, by human uses, with the Divine Humanity — this, at the very least, is the meaning of "the study, development, and -dissemination of science, upon the philosophical principles of Swedenborg." Business has an honorable aspect, as being opposed to idleness, the most hopeless offspring of the whole progeny of sin ; but, if business, either professional, commercial, or political, absorb the affections; if it cherish covetousness ; if it engage the mind in ambitious pursuits, it may be as dangerous as its more inconsiderate and frivolous rival : the grand evil of both lies in the alienation of the heart from God. FORCES AND TENDENCIES OE NATUEE. BY W. H. HOLCOMBE, M. D. From the pages of History, we learn that Religion after Religion has sunk into oblivion, as the advancement of knowledge prohibited a longer imposition upon the credulity of mankind. A comparison of theoretic principles with the positive phenomena of nature, must be the touchstone of the truth of every