Consolations in Travel eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 190 pages of information about Consolations in Travel.

Consolations in Travel eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 190 pages of information about Consolations in Travel.
confusion.  It is a sublime occupation to investigate the cause of the tempest and the volcano, and to point out their use in the economy of things, to bring the lightning from the clouds and make it subservient to our experiments, to produce, as it were, a microcosm in the laboratory of art, and to measure and weigh those invisible atoms which, by their motions and changes according to laws impressed upon them by the Divine Intelligence, constitute the universe of things.  The true chemical philosopher sees good in all the diversified forms of the external world.  Whilst he investigates the operations of infinite power guided by infinite wisdom, all low prejudices, all mean superstitions, disappear from his mind.  He sees man an atom amidst atoms fixed upon a point in space, and yet modifying the laws that are around him by understanding them, and gaining, as it were, a kind of dominion over time and an empire in material space, and exerting on a scale infinitely small a power seeming a sort of shadow or reflection of a creative energy, and which entitles him to the distinction of being made in the image of God and animated by a spark of the Divine Mind.  Whilst chemical pursuits exalt the understanding, they do not depress the imagination or weaken genuine feeling; whilst they give the mind habits of accuracy by obliging it to attend to facts, they likewise extend its analogies, and though conversant with the minute forms of things, they have for their ultimate end the great and magnificent objects of Nature.  They regard the formation of a crystal, the structure of a pebble, the nature of a clay or earth; and they apply to the causes of the diversity of our mountain chains, the appearances of the winds, thunderstorms, meteors, the earthquake, the volcano, and all those phenomena which offer the most striking images to the poet and the painter.  They keep alive that inextinguishable thirst after knowledge which is one of the greatest characteristics of our nature, for every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories.  It has justly been said that the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded.  This strictly applies to chemical inquiries, and hence they are wonderfully suited to the progressive nature of the human intellect, which by its increasing efforts to acquire a higher kind of wisdom, and a state in which truth is fully and brightly revealed, seems, as it were, to demonstrate its birthright to immortality.

Eub.—­I am glad that our opposition has led you to so complete a vindication of your favourite science.  I want no further proof of its utility.  I regret that I have not before made it a particular object of study.

Phil.—­As our friend has so fully convinced us of the importance of chemistry, I hope he will descend to some particulars as to its real nature, its objects, its instruments.  I would willingly have a definition of chemistry and some idea of the qualifications necessary to become a chemist, and of the apparatus essential for understanding what has been already done in the science, and for pursuing new inquiries.

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Consolations in Travel from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.