urpose of
having it repressed, unless the attractions of natural phenomena be
like the blush of the forbidden fruit, conferred merely for the
purpose of exercising our self-denial in letting them alone; we may
fairly claim for the study of Physics the recognition that it answers
to an impulse implanted by nature in the constitution of man.

A few days ago, a Master of Arts, who is still a young man, and
therefore the recipient of a modern education, stated to me that until
he had reached the age of twenty years he had never been taught
anything whatever regarding natural phenomena, or natural law. Twelve
years of his life previously had been spent exclusively among the
ancients. The case, I regret to say, is typical. Now, we cannot,
without prejudice to humanity, separate the present from the past. The
nineteenth century strikes its roots into the centuries gone by, and
draws nutriment from them. The world cannot afford to lose the record
of any great deed or utterance; for such are prolific throughout all
time. We cannot yield the companionship of our loftier brothers of
antiquity,--of our Socrates and Cato,--whose lives provoke us to
sympathetic greatness across the interval of two thousand years. As
long as the ancient languages are the means of access to the ancient
mind, they must ever be of priceless value to humanity; but surely
these avenues might be kept open without making such sacrifices as
that above referred to, universal. We have conquered and possessed
ourselves of continents of land, concerning which antiquity knew
nothing; and if new continents of thought reveal themselves to the
exploring human spirit, shall we not possess them also? In these
latter days, the study of Physics has given us glimpses of the methods
of Nature which were quite hidden from the ancients, and we should be
false to the trust committed to us, if we were to sacrifice the hopes
and aspirations of the Present out of deference to the Past.

The bias of my own education probably manifests itself in a desire I
always feel to seize upon every possible opportunity of checking my
assumptions and conclusions by experience. In the present case, it is
true, your own consciousness might be appealed to in proof of the
tendency of the human mind to inquire into the phenomena presented to
it by the senses; but I trust you will excuse me if, instead of doing
this, I take advantage of the facts which have fallen in my way
through life,