SIR HUMPHRY DAVY

(1778-1829)

N HIS "Consolations in Travel," written during the last years of his life and published after his death, Sir Humphry Davy shows the imaginative power and command of language which excited the admiration of Coleridge for his scientific lectures. "I attend Davy's lectures," said the author of "The Ancient Mariner," "to increase my stock of metaphors." Davy was himself a fluent versifier from his boyhood, but while still in his teens he concluded to be a great scientist instead of a poet, and alarmed the neighbors accordingly by the frequent explosions which ensued as a result of his chemical experiments secretly carried on in the garret. Born at Penzance, in Cornwall, December 17th, 1778, he lost his father in 1794, and his extensive and deep learning was acquired largely by self-education. It is scarcely an exaggeration to call him the founder of nineteenth-century chemistry, for besides his own work resulting in a long list of far-reaching discoveries, he taught Faraday who was a pupil in his laboratory. The safety lamp, which he invented out of compassion for the coal miners of Newcastle, has saved generations of workers from death in its worst form, but as he prepared the way for reducing metals from their oxides by exciting them to molecular vibration, it may fairly be expected that his greatest usefulness is still in the future. He died May 29th, 1829, at Geneva, where he had stopped during the travels by which, after collapsing under his studies, he had hoped to recover his health.

“IN

A VISION OF PROGRESS

(The Genius of Humanity Speaks)

'N THE population of the world, the great object is evidently to produce organized frames most capable of the happy and intellectual enjoyment of life-to raise man above the mere animal state. To perpetuate the advantages of civilization, the races most capable of these advantages are preserved and extended, and no considerable improvement made by an individual

is ever lost to society. series of ages, and apparently the quantity of life increased. In comparing the population of the globe as it now is with what it was centuries ago, you would find it considerably greater; and if the quantity of life is increased, the quantity of happiness, particularly that resulting from the exercise of intellectual power, is increased in a still higher ratio. Now, you will say, 'Is mind generated, is spiritual power created; or are those results dependent upon the organization of matter, upon new perfections given to the machinery upon which thought and motion depend?' I proclaim to you," said the Genius, raising his voice from its low and sweet tone to one of ineffable majesty, "neither of these opinions is true. Listen, whilst I reveal to you the mysteries of spiritual natures, but I almost fear that with the mortal veil of your senses surrounding you, these mysteries can never be made perfectly intelligible to your mind. Spiritual natures are eternal and indivisible, but their modes of being are as infinitely varied as the forms of matter. They have no relation. to space, and, in their transitions, no dependence upon time, so that they can pass from one part of the universe to another by laws entirely independent of their motion. The quantity or the number of spiritual essences, like the quantity or number of the atoms of the material world, are always the same; but their arrangements, like those of the materials which they are destined to guide or govern, are infinitely diversified; they are, in fact, parts more or less inferior of the infinite mind, and in the planetary systems, to one of which this globe you inhabit belongs, are in a state of probation, continually aiming at, and generally rising to a higher state of existence. Were it permitted me to extend your vision to the fates of individual existences, I could show you the same spirit, which in the form of Socrates developed the foundations of moral and social virtue, in the Czar Peter possessed of supreme power and enjoying exalted felicity in improving a rude people. I could show you the monad or spirit, which with the organs of Newton displayed an intelligence almost above humanity, now in a higher and better state of planetary existence drinking intellectual light from a purer source and approaching nearer to the infinite and divine Mind. But prepare your mind, and you shall at least catch a glimpse of those states which the highest intellectual beings that have belonged to the earth enjoy after death in their transition to new

You see living forms perpetuated in the

and more exalted natures." The voice ceased, and I appeared in a dark, deep, and cold cave, of which the walls of the Colosæum formed the boundary. From above a bright and rosy light broke into this cave, so that whilst below all was dark, above all was bright and illuminated with glory. I seemed possessed at this moment of a new sense, and felt that the light brought with it a genial warmth; odors like those of the most balmy flowers appeared to fill the air, and the sweetest sounds of music absorbed my sense of hearing; my limbs had a new lightness given to them, so that I seemed to rise from the earth, and gradually mounted into the bright luminous air, leaving behind me the dark and cold cavern, and the ruins with which it was strewed. Language is inadequate to describe what I felt in rising continually upwards through this bright and luminous atmosphere. I had not, as is generally the case with persons in dreams of this kind, imagined to myself wings; but I rose gradually and securely as if I were myself a part of the ascending column of light. By degrees this luminous atmosphere, which was diffused over the whole of space, became more circumscribed, and extended only to a limited spot around me. I saw through it the bright blue sky, the moon and stars, and I passed by them as if it were in my power to touch them with my hand. I beheld Jupiter and Saturn as they appear through our best telescopes, but still more magnified, all the moons and belts of Jupiter being perfectly distinct, and the double ring of Saturn appearing in that state in which I have heard Herschel often express a wish he could see it. It seemed as if I was on the verge of the solar system, and my moving sphere of light now appeared to pause. I again heard the low and sweet voice of the Genius, which said, "You are now on the verge of your own system: will you go further, or return to the earth? » I replied, "I have left an abode which is damp, dreary, dark, and cold; I am now in a place where all is life, light, and enjoyment; show me, at least before I return, the glimpse which you promised me of those superior intellectual natures and the modes of their being and their enjoyments." "There are creatures far superior," said the Genius, "to any idea your imagination can form in that part of the system now before you, comprehending Saturn, his moons and rings. I will carry you to the verge of the immense atmosphere of this planet. In that space you will see sufficient to wonder at, and far more than with your present organization