One more instance, and I have done with this part of the subject. The same great poet made another important physical discovery in precisely the same way. Gothe, strolling in a cemetery near Venice, stumbled on a skull which was lying before him. Suddenly the idea flashed across his mind that the skull was composed of vertebra; in other words, that the bony covering of the head was simply an expansion of the bony covering of the spine. This luminous idea was afterwards adopted by Oken and a few other great naturalists in Germany and France, but it was not received in England till ten years ago, when Mr. Owen took it up, and in his very remarkable work on the Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton, showed its meaning and purpose as contributing towards a general scheme of philosophic anatomy. That the discovery was made by Göthe late in the eighteenth century is certain, and it is equally certain that for fifty years afterwards the English anatomists, with all their tools and all their dissections, ignored or despised that very discovery which they are now compelled to accept.

tory of our knowledge, that all physical | wonderful scene in the churchyard, when discoveries are made by the Baconian Hamlet walks in among the graves, where method, and that any other method is the brutal and ignorant clowns are singunworthy the attention of sound and sen- ing and jeering and jesting over the resible thinkers. mains of the dead. You remember how the fine imagination of the great Danish thinker is stirred by the spectacle, albeit he knows not yet that the grave which is being dug at his feet is destined to contain all that he holds dear upon earth. But though he wists not of this, he is moved like the great German poet, and he, like Göthe, takes up a skull, and his speculative faculties begin to work. Images of decay crowd on his mind as he thinks how the mighty are fallen and have passed away. In a moment, his imagination carries him back two thousand years, and he almost believes that the skull he holds in his hand is indeed the skull of Alexander, and in his mind's eye he contrasts the putrid bone with what it once contained, the brain of the scourge and conqueror of mankind. Then it is that suddenly he, like Göthe, passes into an ideal physical world, and seizing the great doctrine of the indestructibility of matter, that doctrine which in his age it was dif ficult to grasp, he begins to show how, by a long series of successive changes, the head of Alexander might have been made to subserve the most ignoble purposes; the substance being always metamorphosed, never destroyed. "Why," asks Hamlet, "why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander?" when, just as he is about to pursue this train of ideas, he is stopped by one of those men of facts, one of those practical and prosaic natures, who are always ready to impede the flight of genius. By his side stands the faithful, the affectionate, but the narrow-minded Horatio, who, looking upon all this as the dream of a distempered fancy, objects that: "twere to consider too curiously to consider so." Oh! what a picture! what a contrast between Hamlet and Horatio! between the idea and the sense; between the imagination and the understanding. "Twere to consider too curiously to consider so." Even thus was Göthe troubled by his cotemporaries, and thus too often speculation is stopped, genius is chilled, and the play and swell of the human mind repressed, because ideas are made subordinate to facts, because the external is preferred to the internal, and because the Horatios of action discourage the Hamlets of thought.

You will particularly observe the circumstances under which this discovery was made. It was not made by some great surgeon, dissector, or physician, but it was made by a great poet, and amidst scenes most likely to excite a poetic temperament. It was made in Venice, that land so calculated to fire the imagination of a poet; the land of marvels, the land of poetry and romance, the land of painting and of song. It was made, too, when Gothe, surrounded by the ashes of the dead, would be naturally impressed with those feelings of solemn awe, in whose presence the human understanding, rebuked and abashed, becomes weak and helpless, and leaves the imagination unfettered to wander in that ideal world which is its own peculiar abode, and from which it derives its highest aspirations.

It has often seemed to me that there is a striking similarity between this event and one of the most beautiful episodes in the greatest production of the greatest man the world has ever possessed; I mean Shakspeare's Hamlet. You remember that

Much more could I have said to you on ] be done, we shall find that the necessity this subject, and gladly would I have en- of some such plan is likely to become larged on so fruitful a theme as the phi- more and more pressing. The field of losophy of scientific method; a philosophy thought is rapidly widening, and as the too much neglected in this country, but of horizon recedes on every side, it will soon the deepest interest to those who care to be impossible for the mere logical operarise above the little instincts of the hour, tions of the understanding to cover the and who love to inquire into the origin of whole of that enormous and outlying doour knowledge, and into the nature of the main. Already the division of labor has conditions under which that knowledge been pushed so far that we are in immiexists. But I fear that I have almost ex- nent danger of losing in comprehensivehausted your patience in leading you into ness more than we gain in accuracy. In paths of thought, which, not being familiar, our pursuit after special truths, we run no must be somewhat difficult, and I can small risk of dwarfing our own minds. By hardly hope that I have succeeded in concentrating our attention we are apt to making every point perfectly clear. Still, narrow our conceptions, and to miss those I do trust that there is no obscurity as to commanding views which would be atthe general results. I trust that I have tained by a wider though perhaps less not altogether raised my voice in vain be- minute survey. It is but too clear that fore this great assembly, and that I have something of this sort has already hap done at least something towards vindicat- pened, and that serious mischief has been ing the use in physical science of that de- wrought. For, look at the language and ductive method which, during the last two sentiments of those who profess to guide, centuries, Englishmen have unwisely des- and who in some measure do guide, public pised. Not that I deny for a moment opinion in the scientific world. According the immense value of the opposite or in- to their verdict, if a man does something ductive method. Indeed, it is impossible specific and immediate; if, for instance, he for any one standing in this theater to do discovers a new acid or a new salt; great so. It is impossible to forget that within admiration is excited, and his praise is the precincts of this building, great se- loudly celebrated. But when a man like crets have been extorted from nature by Göthe puts forth some vast and pregnant induction alone. Under the shadow idea which is destined to revolutionize a and protection of this noble Institution, whole department of inquiry, and by inmen of real eminence, men of power and augurating a new train of thought to form thought have, by a skillful employment of an epoch in the history of the human that method, made considerable additions mind; if it happens, as is always the case, to our knowledge, have earned for them- that certain facts contradict that view, selves the respect of their cotemporaries, then the so-called scientific men rise up in and well deserve the homage of posterity. arms against the author of so daring an To them all honor is due; and I, for one, innovation; a storm is raised about his would say, let that honor be paid freely, head, he is denounced as a dreamer, an ungrudgingly, and with an open and idle visionary, an interloper in matters bounteous heart. But I venture to sub- which he has not studied with proper somit that all discoveries have not been briety. made by this, their favorite process. I submit that there is a spiritual, a poetic, and for aught we know a spontaneous and uncaused element in the human mind, which ever and anon, suddenly and without warning, gives us a glimpse and a forecast of the future, and urges us to seize truth as it were by anticipation. In attacking the fortress, we may sometimes storm the citadel without stopping to sap the outworks. That great discoveries have been made in this way, the history of our knowledge decisively proves. And if, passing from what has been already accomplished, we look at what remains to

Thus it is that great minds are depressed in order that little minds may be raised. This false standard of excellence has corrupted even our language and vitiated the ordinary forms of speech. Among us a theorist is actually a term of reproach, instead of being, as it ought to be, a term of honor; for to theorize is the highest function of genius, and the greatest philosophers must always be the greatest theorists. What makes all this the more serious is, that the further our knowledge advances, the greater will be the need of rising to transcendental views of the physical world. To the magnificent

doctrine of the indestructibility of matter, | ideal world, lift us from the dust in which we are now adding the no less magnificent we are too prone to grovel, and develop in one of the indestructibility of force; and us those germs of imagination which even we are beginning to perceive that, ac- the most sluggish and apathetic undercording to the ordinary scientific treat- standings in some degree possess. The ment, our investigations must be confined striking fact that most men of genius have to questions of metamorphosis and of dis- had remarkable mothers, and that they tribution; that the study of causes and of have gained from their mothers far more entities is forbidden to us; and that we than from their fathers; this singular and are limited to phenomena through which unquestionable fact can, I think, be best and above which we can never hope to explained by the principles which I have pass. But unless I greatly err, there is laid down. Some, indeed, will tell you something in us which craves for more that this depends upon laws of the heredthan this. Surely we shall not always be itary transmission of character from pasatisfied, even in physical science, with rent to child. But if this be the case, how the cheerless prospect of never reaching comes it that while every one admits that. beyond the laws of coexistence and of se- remarkable men have usually remarkable quence? Surely this is not the be-all and mothers, it is not generally admitted that end-all of our knowledge. And yet, ac- remarkable men have usually remarkable cording to the strict canons of inductive fathers? If the intellect is bequeathed on logic, we can do no more. According one side, why is it not bequeathed on the to that method, this is the verge and con- other? For my part, I greatly doubt fine of all. Happily, however, induction whether the human mind is handed down is only one of our resources. Induction in this way, like an heir-loom, from is indeed a mighty weapon laid up in the one generation to another. I rather bearmory of the human mind, and by its aid lieve that, in regard to the relation begreat deeds have been accomplished and tween men of genius and their mothers, noble conquests have been won. But in the really important events occur after that armory there is another weapon, I birth, when the habits of thought peculiar will not say of a stronger make, but cer- to one sex act upon and improve the habits tainly of a keener edge; and if that wea of thought peculiar to the other sex. Unpon had been oftener used during the consciously, and from a very early period, present and preceding century, our know- there is established an intimate and enledge would be far more advanced than it dearing connection between the deductive actually is. If the imagination had been mind of the mother and the inductive more cultivated, if there had been a closer mind of her son. The understanding of union between the spirit of poetry and the the boy, softened and yet elevated by the spirit of science, natural philosophy would imagination of his mother, is saved from have made greater progress, because na- that degeneracy towards which the mere tural philosophers would have taken a understanding always inclines; it is saved higher and more successful aim, and would from being too cold, too matter-of-fact, have enlisted on their side a wider range too prosaic, and the different properties of human sympathies. and functions of the mind are more harFrom this point of view you will see moniously developed than would otherthe incalculable service women have ren-wise be practicable. Thus it is that by dered to the progress of knowledge. Great and exclusive as is our passion for induction, it would, but for them, have been greater and more exclusive still. Empirical as we are, slaves as we are to the tyranny of facts, our slavery would, but for them, have been more complete and more ignominious. Their turn of thought, their habits of mind, their conversation, their influence, insensibly extending over the whole surface of society, and frequently penetrating its intimate structure, have, more than all other things put together, tended to raise us into an

the mere play of the affections the finished man is ripened and completed. Thus it is that the most touching and the most sacred form of human love, the purest, the highest, and the holiest compact of which our nature is capable, becomes an engine for the advancement of knowledge and the discovery of truth. In after-life other relations often arise by which the same process is continued. And notwithstanding a few exceptions, we do undoubtedly find that the most truly eminent men have had not only their affections, but also their intellect greatly influenced by women.

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faculties against our common foe. We, therefore, have been often worsted, and have sustained many and grievous reverses. But even so, such is the elasticity of the human mind, such is the energy of that immortal and god-like principle which lives within us, that we are baffled without being discouraged, our very defeats quicken our resources, and we may hope in a victory.

From Bentley's Miscellany.

RUSHING HEAD LONG