The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-17 00:00:00

THE WONDERS OF THE PRESENT AGE.

[From the introductory lecture of the Rev. James Ha-
milton professor of Pastoral Theology in the Presbyterian
College, London.]
What makes our age so wonderful, is the simultaneous-
ness of all sorts cf discoveries. Whilst the telescope of
Herschel was discovering new worlds, the microscope of
Humberg was investigating a new animal kingdom in a
drop of putrid water; and whilst the analytic powders of
Lagrange were demonstrating the perpetuity of the solar
system, the sagacity of Dalton was bringing the elemen-
tary atoms of each simple substance under the dominion
of mathematical laws. At the same time that the acumen
of Bell had detected the true theory of the nervous sys-
tem, the metaphysic scalpel of Thomas Brown was busy
with the mind of man ; and simpler views &causation,
and many mental phenomena were given Wthe world.
Lavoisier's decomposition of air and water into their un-
suspected elements,—Black's discovery of latent heat,—
the application of the atomic theory in the Manchester
Memoirs,—the dazzling experiments of Davy, which
proved that our globe is but a mass of metallic oxide, and
of Berzelius, and the goniometer of Wollaston,—in the
diligent hands of Klaproth, and Mohs, and Haup, and
Jameson, and Thomson,—mineralogy, from a confused
handful of ores, and spars, and pebbles, in a dusty cup-
board, has grown up to a graceful fane of goodliest stores
and fairest hues,—a science as elegant as it is well defined.
How Father Linneeus would rub his incredulous eyes,
could he see the comely stature to which his little Flora,
his " Amabiles Scientica," has attained in the fostering
hands, and under the faithful tutorship of Jussieu, and
Smith, and Decandolle, and Hooker,—too tall a pet to
dandle now,—a science with a dowry of 100,000 species
of plants. And Entomology—its hawking eye has hunted
out as many sorts of bees, for instance, or butterflies, as
people once imagined there were of insects put altogether;
and whilst the dissecting needle of Bonnet has shown the
resources which Infinite skill has lavished in making one
caterpillar complete and comfortable, the arranging eye
and busy fingers o Lett ielle, and Kirby, and Burmerster,
have shown that it takes nearly half a million different
sorts of these forgotten minions to fill up the Creator's
scheme, a large portion of our personal frame-work
nothing more,—Faraday's brilliant researches, to demon-
strate that the force which holds a particle of oxygen and
a particle of iron together, is the same which trembles in
the magnet, sweeps in the lightning, and roars in the
conflagration,—Liebig's investigation in the substances of
which living organs are composed, and which have ren-
dered the laboratory of Giessen the metropolis of a new
science, by which it is hard to say whether the physician
or the farmer will profit most—he who feeds this body, or
he who heals it,—Cross's processes in his conjuring cave
at Bristol, by which he can manufacture the most costly
gems—good as nature's own—from bits of flint, or coal,
or clay,—have rushed, one after another, with such ex•
citing rapidity, that chemistry has not time to admire her
own discoveries, in the impetuosity of fresh enterprise,
and in the ardour of new revelations. Time would fail to
tell the labours of Cuvier, and Owen, and Fleming, in
Comparative Anatomy—the toils which, in some depart-
ments, have left the Zoologist little more to do. And
though it might be pleasant to ramble with Wilson, and
Audubon, and Lucien Bonaparte, among the woods and
waters of the western wilderness, or to visit with Goold,
the quaint old-fashioned birds of New Holland, or to take
a turn with Lamark in his grotto of shells, or with Ellis
in his coral care, or grope with Buckland and Lyall,
Brogniart and Delabeche, with Murchison and Miller,
through the steaming forests, the muddy seas, and chaos-
lighted fields of a world before the world,—we forbear.
We are content to say again—slat it would take too long
time to prove by enumeration—there never was a time
when science was more wealthy, or the stimulated mind
of man more certain of discovering yet greater things.
And it is one great advantage to live in this stage of clear-
seeing and clear- ing. Now that London is the city,
and all England I, suburb,—now that the brother in
New York is nearer than the brother in Edinburgh once
was,—every urgent letter that twinkles from the Land's
End to the capital, and every anxious journey by which
you dart like a volition to the distant scene of danger, is a
gift from science,—a favour done you by James Watt,
the engineer. The invalid who recovers from diseases
once deemed fatal, or, instead of the rough and torturing
remedies of a ruder age, finds health and vigour charmed
back by the gentle treatment and elegant prescriptions of
modern pharmacy, owes something to Physiology and
modern Chemistry.—just as the man who escapes entirely
the most dismal diseases, may bless the memory of Her-
bert Jenner. The sailor who can traverse ten thousand
miles of ocean with gay security, owes his steady tract to
a science of which he possibly never heard the name—
is guided to his haven by an Italian philosopher, who has
been in his grave 200 years. The student who, for a Few
sovereigns, can surround himself with a store of hocks,
such as it would once have needed the fortune of Maece-
nas or Ptolemy to purchase, is much the obliged debtor
to the old German min er, as well as to the more recent
Faustus. Gentlemen, I trust that your faith is too firm to
fear any of the sciences, and your minds sufficiently ex-
panded to love them all. I trust that you will be ever
ready to give honour to whom honour is due, and acknow-
ledge your obligations to living wisdom as well as departed
genius. I hope that you feel that the lines have fallen to
you in pleasant places, whe your lot was cast on this
opulent age, with its quick-running knowledge, its count-
less accommodations, its unprecedented discoveries, and
its vigorous mind. And lam sure I wish you joy of your
own high calling, destined in such an age to study and
extend a science nobler than them all.