they went on to the farm of the monastery with all the zeal of itinerant preachers; they hired a barn to teach what they knew of science and philosophy. In a short time a concourse of pupils gathered about them; in the second year the accumulation from all the country round was so great that neither house, barn, nor church could contain them. They separated their labors, and one taught grammar, another logic, another rhetoric, and a fourth preached. “In this unadorned account," says the historian, "we have a striking proof of the attachment of mankind to intellectual improvement, and their eagerness to embrace every opportunity of acquiring it. The soil is ever ready; the laborers only are wanting where it continues unproductive.' Yes, never did the teacher step into the arena of life without followers; never did he tread the path of instruction that light did not fall upon it; never did he go armed with fit instruction, but he went "conquering and to conquer." Yet I cannot flatter him with the hopes of ease and idleness; there is no royal road to geometry —and there can be no downy couch for the teacher.

And now let me refer the reader for one moment to a well-known structure of science and of art. On the coast of England stands the Eddystone lighthouse, many miles from the land, on a sunken rock of the

* Sharon Turner's History of the Middle Ages, vol. iv. book vi. chap. 2: "One monk taught the Latin grammar, another taught the logic of Aristotle, a third lectured on rhetoric, and a fourth preached to the people."

ocean. It was built and swept away; it was built again and burnt. Science comes to the aid of commerce it gathered the materials, and the tide washed them away; it collected them again; secured, bolted and dovetailed them into the rock. It rose slowly but steadfastly above the waters; and the higher it rose, the faster it grew; and at last, after years of patient labor, the light was hung on high. The ocean breaks over its top, but the watchman is there to trim it; and still, that white light burns brightly through the mists. And never again, till some convulsion, sent through the works of nature, by nature's God, shall that light fade away.

And now, my friends, that tower is the labor of the human race; that light is science, revealed alike by the works and by the Scriptures of the Most High; that watchman is the teacher; knowledge has been slowly, patiently, laboriously accumulated; many times has its materials been swept away by floods of error and of barbarism; little by little have its foundations been bolted and riveted by experiment, by demonstration, and by revelation. And now its light is upon the mountain top; but still the waves and winds of error and of doctrine beat upon it. Who shall keep it? You are the watchmen. And long as storm and darkness shall abide upon this wide ocean of being, you will hear a cry ringing abroad, Watchman, what of the night?"

CHAPTER V.

THE IDEA OF SCIENCE.

"I think science may be divided properly into these three sorts:

"First, The knowledge of things as they are in their own proper beings,-their constitution, properties, and operations.

"Secondly, The skill of right applying our own powers and actions for the attainment of things good and useful.

"Thirdly, The third branch may be called the doctrine of signs-the most useful whereof being words-it is aptly enough termed also logic."-Locke on the Human Understanding, B. iv. ch. 21.

SCIENCE may be generally defined as systematized knowledge. It is sometimes confounded with knowledge merely but there is a vast amount of knowledge which is no science; nay, which never can become such. For example, a piece of intelligence is received that a battle has been fought, or an earthquake occurred. This is knowledge; but it is neither science nor part of science. In one sense, and in another and a distant period of time, it may become a fact, which, with a number of similar facts, make up a general result in the philosophy of history. At the present, however, it is not and cannot be science. Science cannot be wholly disconnected from the ideas of system and reason. It is the former condition of knowledge. It implies, in the term itself, reason, deduction, method, conclusion, system. Science, therefore, is more properly the system which reason

has deduced from facts, than any arrangement of the facts themselves.

Science thus systematized naturally divides itself into three very distinct branches, having their basis, not only in what is called nature, but in that which is far higher and superior to nature in the order and method of creation.

In the Book of Genesis,* we have a record of the order of succession in the creation of the earth and its inhabitants. First, we have the creation of all things necessary to any thing which succeeded them. Hence we have the substance of the earth, the water, the light, the stars, the sun, the fruits, the animalsall in succession created before man, to whom they all were necessary. This was the creation of matter -the material world-constituting the visible abode of spirit. The laws of matter then make the first subject of science, and exist prior to and independent of man. Geometry is the science of form and the relations of form, derived from matter only. These laws began to exist with the creation of matter, and continue to exist independent of man. The principles of geometry existed, and the science would exist, perhaps in a dormant state, though man had never been created. This is obviously true of all the principles and laws which relate to the physical creation. Physical science, then, is the first and most distinct form of general science.

* Genesis, chap. 1-The order of creation.

--བར་ལ་བབ་མའ་་་་་ ་་ ་ ་ ་ཁས—---- མཐ

དའ་་།

Continuing to trace from divine history the order of creation, we find that when the physical constitution of things was completed, then man was created, and there was breathed into him the breath of life. This life was not the same life as that given to the animals; but it was something which being breathed into man from God, gave him dominion over the earth, and made his spirit immortal.*

This was in regard to this earth—the metaphysical creation-the creation of a spirit, whose laws of action make a new subject of science. Hence we have metaphysical science, and that which is an application of metaphysics to the relation of things, such as logic.

Pursuing still the path of divine history, we find that when organized matter had been created, and life had been given to man, with dominion over all other things, that then there was given to him a manner of expression; a sign of ideas; a means of communication, and of stating and making known the relations of things abstracted from the things themselves: this is language, grammar, philosophy. It is the doctrine of signs. Algebra is an example of it in the expression of physical science; and all literature is but a system of signs for the expression of thought.†

Thus we find the three great foundations of science

* Genesis, chap. 2, verse 7.-" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Genesis, chap. 2, verse 19.