n the past. Knowledge is enthroned as a king,
and grand truths and new ideas are his ministers. Science takes the
diameter of the earth's orbit as a base line and unit of measurement,
and with it spans infinity, and triangulates the nebulous systems amid
the shadowy verges of receding space. Its researches are cosmical upon
the earth and the heavens, and all the elements minister to its
progress. Sink to the lowest mine, or fathom the ocean's depth, or climb
the loftiest mountains, or career through the heavens on silken wings,
and it is there also. On--on--on; nearer--nearer--still nearer it moves
forever and forever, with accelerated speed, toward the infinite
eternal. Such are the triumphs of knowledge; and he who diffuses it
among our race, or discovers and disseminates new truths, advances man
nearer to his Creator. He exalts the whole race; he elevates it in the
scale of being, and raises it into higher and still higher spheres.

It is science that marks the speed of sound and light and lightning,
calculates the eclipses, catalogues the stars, maps the heavens, and
follows, for centuries of the past and the future, the comet's course.
It explores the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. With geology,
it notes the earthquake, upheaval of mountains, and, with mineralogy,
the laws of crystallization. With chemistry, it analyzes, decomposes,
and compounds the elements. If, like Canute, it cannot arrest the tidal
wave, it is subjecting it to laws and formulas. Taking the sunbeam for
its pencil, it pictures man's own image, and the scenery of the earth
and the heavens. Has science any limits or horizon? Can it ever
penetrate the soul of man, and reveal the mystery of his existence and
destiny? It is certainly exploring the facts of sociology, arranging
and generalizing them, and deducing laws. It regards man in his social
relations, in families, tribes, and governments, savage, semi-barbarous,
and civilized; beginning with the most simple, advancing to the chief,
the patriarch, the king, the feudal military, the regal aristocratic,
the pure democracy by popular assemblages, as in Athens and the school
towns of Massachusetts, rising higher to the central representative, and
to the highest, although necessarily more complex, the federal
constitutional representative, carrying out the organic division, and
the subdivision of legislative and administrative action--regarding the
state, the national, and international poli