in society. I suppose, too, that, for all that part of it which can be applied in the maintenance of health the merit of utility would be admitted; and that, in general terms, it would be allowed that the study of designs and final causes should be mingled with other studies in any scheme of education by which it is proposed that the whole mind should be disciplined, and all modes of reasoning should be taught.

But still, the question may be asked, Is it possible that knowledge such as this, of the methods of design, will rest, with any influence, in a mind that must be engrossed in urgent business, or in household cares; harassed, perhaps, in struggles against poverty, or dissipated in the luxuries of wealth? It may be very well (some will say) to teach these things to the young, but men and women have other works and other pleasures to pursue.

I know all this; and I have overshot my mark if I have urged any teaching of which the effects would interfere with devotion to the necessary works of later life. But I suppose that, if any one will watch his thoughts for a few days, or even a few hours, he will find that, however engrossing may be his cares or his pleasures, however earnest his attention to what seems his most urgent need, there are yet intermingling trains of thought quite alien from these:-trains into which the mind falls, it knows not how, but in which it will wander as if resolute to refresh itself. Now these must be provided for; and so it must be an object of all education to supply, in early life, those studies from which, in later years, may arise reflections that may mingle happily with the business-thoughts of common days; that may suggest to the reason, or even to the imagination, some

hidden meaning, some future purpose, some noble end, in the things about us. Reflections such as these, being interwoven with our common thoughts, may often bring to our life a tone of joy, which its general aspect would not wear; like brilliant threads shot through the texture of some sombre fabric, giving lustre to its darkness.

But besides this happy influence of the general impressions that might remain in the mind from the early teaching of physiology, I claim for it the hope that its principles might read to some minds lessons of the truest wisdom.

The student of Nature's purposes should surely be averse from leading a purposeless existence. Watching design in everything around him, he could not fail, one would think, to reflect often on the purpose of his own existence. And doing so, if his mind were imbued with the knowledge of the mutual fitness in which all the members of his body, and all the parts of the whole organic world, subsist, and minister to each other's good, he could not conclude that he exists for his own sake alone, or that happiness would be found separate from the offices of mutual help and of universal good-will. One who is conversant with things that have a purpose in the future, higher than that which they have yet fulfilled, would never think that his own highest destiny is yet achieved. Though his place among men might be only like that of a single particle-like that of a single blood-cell of the body—yet would he strive to concur, and take his share, in all progressive good. Nor would he count that, with this life ended, his purpose would be attained; but by teaching, or by record, or by some other of those means, through which, in the history of our race, things that in their rudiments seemed trivial

M

have been developed into great results, he would strive to "achieve at least some useful work, the fruit whereof might abide." Conscious of an immortal nature, and of desires and capacities for knowledge, which cannot be satisfied in this world, he would be sure that the great law of progress, from a lower to a higher state, would not be abrogated in the Divine government of that part of him which cannot perish, and is not yet perfect. In him, even the understanding would be assured that, "as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly;" for that is the true lesson of development.

And because it abounds in lessons such as these, I claim for physiology the pre-eminence among all sciences, for the clear and full analogies which it displays between truths natural and revealed: and I would teach it everywhere; looking to its help, by these analogies, to prove the concord between knowledge and belief, and to mediate in the ever-pending conflict of intellect and faith.

ON THE INFLUENCE

OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE UPON

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN.

BY

WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., F.R.S.