As Astronomy will show us the infinitely large, Chemistry will bring to us the infinitely small. Here we are in Nature’s laboratory. Listen! We can almost hear the myriad atoms, like unseen battalions in the night, quietly falling into line. It is as if we had penetrated the arcana of Nature. See! Here she mingles her dyes. Hence come the odors, the flavors, the forms of all substances. No wonder the old alchemist hung over his crucible (crux, across—the mark upon the vessel to guard against the geests, ghosts—our gas—which threatened him) until the divining rod fell from his palsied hand. There is a rare fascination in the study. It so closely concerns human welfare. The useful as well as the fine arts, agriculture, manufacturing, and all our domestic life are intimately concerned in its discoveries and progress, and when we have learned how wonderful a thing is a molecule we are prepared to learn of masses of minerals. Mineralogy is less understood than some other of the natural sciences; for a few years past, however, it has pushed forward rapidly. The impetus given to mining, the formation of cabinets, of great mineralogical displays, such as that at Denver the past year, and the mineral treasures of Australia, California, and Colorado have awakened much popular interest. Gold was mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis, and the enumeration of precious stones in various parts of the Old Testament, and in Revelation, shows that the ancients were not unacquainted with the more beautiful forms of minerals. It remained, however for our time to show that even the clod beneath our feet, the rock of the mountain, and the ice of the glacier are built with the precision of a marble palace. There is a beautiful simplicity in these combinations. They can all be reduced to six primary forms. This science and the closely allied branch of Crystalography fortunately can be made very pleasing to the eye by means of the helps which we can summon. Thus we are led by gradual steps to consider Geology, or the study of the earth, as to its great features. And what a theme it is! Ocean making! continent building! mountain raising! making of worlds! The story is written in strata by fossils, or in the markings left by some great force in the earth’s crust.
No science has more interest for the artist, the architect, the civil engineer. But perhaps a deeper and more solemn interest attaches to it because of its relations to the all-important truths of Revelation. Fortunately this branch of human knowledge has not been forced to depend upon individual enterprise or love of truth. It has knocked at the halls of legislation; it has been welcomed to the palaces of kings. For lo! it came promising greater riches than were ever dreamed of by Spanish free-booters, and many a State has found through it an El Dorado within its own limits.
Physics, or Natural Philosophy, will next explain to us more fully by illustration and apparatus, the characteristics of those forces which join together the molecules, not less than hold the worlds in harmony. It is an old science, but has clothed itself in new garments. In some directions, as in acoustics and light, it has made very wonderful progress within the memory of the school-boy of to-day. The “Arabian Nights” has few things to tell us so startling as that a man can sit in his office in New York and hold converse with a friend in Chicago.
Never before did man give such good promise of really entering upon his heritage as master in this world, in the spirit of the high destiny that was promised him at his creation.
Botany comes next. It has been quite the fashion to look upon this study as unworthy the attention of the vigorous masculine mind—“a girl’s study, about posy-beds, the language of flowers, and, at best, fit only for the decoration of a poet’s verse!” And yet it concerns one whole wide realm of nature. It has received little attention in our colleges, scarcely finding a place in the curriculum of study.
It really embraces a number of separate sciences—economic, agricultural, horticultural, medical and fossil botany. Of late a new interest has been awakened in some of these. The climatic relations of forests have become matter of legislative inquiry. Great forestry conventions have been held, and an able report upon the subject has been made by the Commissioner of Agriculture. A gentleman in New York has just made an appropriation of twenty-five thousand dollars for the best collection of woods in the world. Aside from these utilitarian views of the matter it is enough for us to know that the Great Teacher said: “Consider the lilies,” and often upon Olivet or “by cool Siloam’s shady rill,” seemed to take pleasure in the trees and flowers which his own hand had made.
Zoölogy will show us a comparative view of the animal creation. A whole literature upon this subject has sprung up within a few years. Darwin and Huxley have added many close and admirable observations upon the habits of animals. Numerous books have appeared upon “Mind in Animals,” “Higher Life in Animals,” and kindred topics, until one almost trembles for his rank in the scale of being. Indeed, when royalty weeps over the departure of Jumbo, and lap-dogs and canaries win the first place in the hearts of fair ladies, we may well review our claims as “lords of creation.”
The study of the Creator’s last great work—man, Physiology, comes next in the order of our series. “Fearfully and wonderfully made,” said the sacred writer, and every discovery of the microscope, every analysis of the scalpel, every astute and learned study of eye, ear, heart or brain, but repeats the declaration, “Know thyself,” urged by one of old as a duty, but it is also a high privilege. A knowledge of physiology and hygiene lies at the very foundation of the science of human welfare. We are now claiming it as a mighty missionary agency in the conversion of the heathen. Ah! it is a rare power to know one’s own make-up and limitations, to the end that the free spirit may do its best. Then again, every one must some day stand where this knowledge will be useful to others; and what higher aim have we than to enrich others with our own knowledge? One can be miserly with his ideas as with his money. Helping with useful knowledge is of that giving which does not impoverish.
Doubtless to cover so wide a field we shall have to study carefully the fine “art of leaving out.” Some other things we must surely remember. For example: