He did not rest here, he was determined to refund the £5 granted to him as a benevolent gift by his club. This was by no means expected from him; but he was inexorable in his resolve. At length this great object of his honourable ambition was effected also. He returned home one evening from the society's meeting, his honest heart filled with pride and joy at the thought that, by his own exertions, he had, after a hard struggle, placed himself in a truly independent position! The afternoon had been very stormy. Sudden and heavy showers had deluged the upper valleys. Shortly after his arrival at home, loud peals of thunder shook the air, and huge drops of rain fell. "We shall have a heavy storm to-night," said Harry; "I am afraid the rising of the waters in the brooks will produce a serious flood before morning. I think I will wait an hour, at least, to see whether it abates or not. You had better go to bed, Mary." The wife obeyed; and Harry sat smoking his pipe to while away the hour. He forgot the storm, for the noise of the thunder and rain graduaily diminished. He was mentally revelling with his own thoughts. He passed in review the principal features of his humble but eventful career. His poverty, his moral debasement, his virtuous resolve, his hopes and fears, his struggles, difficulties, and final triumph; all, in turn, glowed with singular and even ominous brightness, on the speculum of his excited imagination. Truly, virtue is its own surpassing reward! The tinsel splendour of worldly pomp; the silver tongued flattery of hireling dependents or expecting parasites; the cheers of the mob, or the complimentary recognition of the learned and the great; neither one nor all combined can confer an hour's extacy to intense, yet so healthy and so holy, as that which quickens the pulsation of the honest manly heart triumphant in its effort for self-dependence! Harry Hartley's inmost soul drank deeply from the nectar bowl presented by approving Conscience. The immortal spirit engendered additional self respect, and hope and confidence in the power of the true man over his worldly destiny. Yes; he had gained that which no gold can purchase; which no friendship can bestow! His heart beat high with rapture as he proudly exclaimed, "For the first time in my life I am an independent man!" How much sweeter is the humble crust we earn ourselves in freedom and in honour than the sugared plumbs which reward servile dependence! A low rumbling sound gradually arrested his attention. He paused and listened intently. A moment more, and the noise had increased to a wild and fearful roar! Harry Hartley rushed towards the door for the purpose of investigating the cause, but he reached it not. A blow like a thunderclap struck the frail barrier, and the room was instantly filled with water. In the language of the country people, "a cloud had burst!" A large water spout had indeed struck the mountain side, and the liberated element rushed madly from the hills, bounding over every obstacle with irresistible impetuosity! (TO BE CONTINUED.) In manhood, with our passions strong, Has drawn our faltering feet aside, Let's seek the right, and now. Procrastination-foe to bliss Curse far more baneful than it seems, In ON THE DIFFUSION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE, AS TENDING TO THE PHYSICAL, INTELLECTUAL, AND SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT OF THE PEOPLE. BY THOMAS STEPHENS, Author of the "History of the Literature of the Kymri," &c., &c. "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas."-Virgil. We have now arrived at that portion of our essay which is to be allotted to the second division of the subject. Second, Special Advantages. In this division we propose to speak of particular sciences, and of their special applications to the interest of individuals, and the progress of society. The bulk of the observations which will here follow will bear a more utilitarian character than those which have been found in the preceding part; and on that account will perhaps be more acceptable to a large class of minds than the other; but, at the outset, I must enter my decided protest against so selfish a method of estimating scientific truths. Two many of us are spoiled children, who are too prone to believe all things created for the gratification of our personal appetites; and by this concentration of attention upon the objects immediately affecting our own intecontract habits of thought and action utterly at variance with enlarged conceptions and generous views. To such minds many of the facts with which science is conversant must appear very contemptible; but they seldom suspect that it is the narrowness of their own minds that prevents the perception of the true significance of such phenomena. Tea-kettles might have gone on boiling for ever before they would see the application of steam to machinery; their children might blow soap bubbles to all eternity without their perceiving the optical explanation of the rainbow; and all the ap rests, we ples in Europe might fall for myriads of years without their dreaming of the law of gravity. Let not my readers, therefore, suffer themselves to fall into this way of thinking; let them not concentrate their thoughts upon their immediate interests, to the exclusion of more enlightened considerations; let them bow more reverently to the decrees of God, as revealed in the laws of nature; and, as their minds enlarge, and their information extends, they will find that the Creator of the universe has made naught in vain, and that "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy" of the ignorant and narrow minded. Science, though it ministered not to a single one of our grosser wants, would still have attractions enough for all cultivated minds, both in its discoveries themselves and in the history of the manner in which those discoveries were effected. Who can read "Picciola, or The Prison Flower" in Chambers' Miscellany, or "The Science of the Sunbeam" in the Papers for the People, without experiencing the most delightful impressions; or follow Newton's great calculation on the sphericity of the globe, and trace the explanation of the morning dew, without feeling the one to be sublime as a poem and the other charming as a fairy tale? But, in reality, of no scientific truth can the assertion be made that it is of no practical service. The history of science very clearly shows, that speculations apparently at first sight the most unprofitable, have almost invariably been those from which the greatest practical applications have emanated. Kepler's discoveries, insignificant as they probably appeared to his contemporaries, led to a knowledge of the elliptical motions of the planets, and to the LAW of gravitation, with all its splendid theoretical consequences, and its inestimable results in practice; Boyle's researches on the elasticity of air, led to the invention of the steam engine; and the dreams of the alchemists have led to some of our most valuable chemical results. The speculations of the natural philosopher, being grounded in the realities of nature, have all of necessity a practical application; but so deep rooted is this short-sighted passion for inquiring of everything-what good is it? as almost to appear instinctive; and nought but a scientific culture will suffice to cure the mind of this tendency to rush at once upon its object, to undervalue the means in overestimation of the end, and while gazing too intently at the good which alone it has been accustomed to desire, to lose sight of the richness and variety of the prospects that offer themselves on either hand of the road.* Proceed we now to our more immediate subject. We must here content ourselves with but a very superficial view of the many sciences which minister to the wants, or gratify the taste, of men. The wonderful revelations of astronomy, and their adaptation to elevate the conceptions, and purify the minds of men, until step by step the grandeur of "the poetry of heaven," and the celestial scenery, lead the mind from earth to heaven, from man to his Maker-all these, which justified the assertion, that "an undevout astronomer is mad," must be passed by unnoticed, in order to show the utility of the science to the shepherd on the plain, the Indian on his journey, and the intrepid sailor far far away on the treacherous deep, with no guide save the moon and the twinkling stars. The astounding facts which form the basis of geology, and reveal to us the history of that "ancient world," whose records are written on stone tablets with the leaves of plants, the foot prints of birds, the fins of fishes, and the monstrous bones of the great Megatherium: all these wonders, tempting as is the subject, must be passed by, to show the practical bearings of the science upon the wants of man. Geology is of immense service to the miner, in determining where a certain required *Herschel. strata will be found, and where it will not be. Many have been the abortive attempts to sink for coal, where, had geology been consulted, it could be shown, either that none existed at all, or at such a depth as would render the project absurd. Sir John Herschel cites an instance of this kind at Bexhill, in Sussex, where eighty thousand pounds were spent in a hopeless adventure; and the history of mining is full of very similar instances. To the proprietors of mines and ironworks, to the practical miner, and to all who are dependent upon those classes of persons, a knowledge of the principles of geology is of the utmost utility. Optics, too, claim a passing word; and more particularly in the application of science to remedy the defects of the eye by the use of scientifically constructed spectacles. Many persons wear glasses from affectation, and thus hasten the period when they will be really wanted, while pride leads others to overstrain their eyes, in order to postpone the period when spectacles cannot be dispensed with; but setting aside these exceptional cases, it appears clear that about the age of forty-five most persons require some assistance from optical science. The inventor of spectacles is unknown; but to the thousands whose sight is defective, he may be said to have lent an eye. He has added to the pleasures and independence of age, and has lengthened life in protracting its usefulness. Venerable genius, unable to read or write, must often without him have been a clouded sun, incapable of imparting its fire to the world. He has continued to wisdom the treasures of knowledge, he has preserved to the public the riches of wisdom, and for all degrees of men he has, times out of number, kept the curtain from falling till the play was at an end.* Electricity also demands some attention. The electrical experiments of Franklin and the French savans, in the early part of the 19th century, excited nearly as much sensation as the American war; and all men were eager to study the laws and repeat the experiments. Since that time electric discovery has made very rapid progress, and this apparently unruly element has been rendered docile as a child, while guided and directed by the hand of science. Houses have been preserved from the effects of its destructive force; throughout France the conductor is recognised as a most valuable and useful instrument; in those parts of Germany where thunder storms are still more common and tremendous, they are become nearly universal; and in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, there is scarcely a modern house without an electric conductor of very superior construction; but the protection of science is not confined to the vines and houses of France and Germany; for an English vessel, two years since, off the coast of Oregon, was bathed for several seconds in a sheet of lightning, and yet, thanks to Harris's conductor, escaped without a scar! And then there is the world's wondrous electric telegraph, along which messages may be sent at the astounding rate of 576,000 miles in a second; already it is used for every variety of purpose requiring speedy communication; the electrified wires were "the cords which hung John Tawell;" and this mighty agent, to which the enchanted horse of the Arab magician, and the magic carpet of the German sorcerer, were but poor contrivances, promises soon to unite the nations of the earth in the bonds of one common brotherhood. Did space permit, we might also dilate on the medical and curative effects of galvanism, but other subjects of greater import still remain. Chemistry, and its application to the useful arts, is a subject of vast extent; it converts the most apparently useless materials into important objects in the arts; and it is every day opening up to the world new sources *Quarterly Review, No. 173, p. 51. |