[Footnote A:  See the remarkable memoir of Professor Alexander, “On the origin of the forms and the present condition of some of the clusters of stars, and several of the nebulae,” (Gould’s Astronomical Journal, Vol. iii, p. 95.)]

RELATIONSHIP OF THE LIBERAL ARTS.

In the remarks which I have hitherto made, I have had mainly in view the direct connection of astronomical science with the uses of life and the service of man.  But a generous philosophy contemplates the subject in higher relations.  It is a remark as old, at least, as Plato, and is repeated from him more than once by Cicero, that all the liberal arts have a common bond and relationship.[A] The different sciences contemplate as their immediate object the different departments of animate and inanimate nature; but this great system itself is but one, and its parts are so interwoven with each other, that the most extraordinary relations and unexpected analogies are constantly presenting themselves; and arts and sciences seemingly the least connected, render to each other the most effective assistance.

[Footnote A:  Archias, i.; De Oratore, iii., 21.]

The history of electricity, galvanism, and magnetism, furnishes the most striking illustration of this remark.  Commencing with the meteorological phenomena of our own atmosphere, and terminating with the observation of the remotest heavens, it may well be adduced, on an occasion like the present.  Franklin demonstrated the identity of lightning and the electric fluid.  This discovery gave a great impulse to electrical research, with little else in view but the means of protection from the thunder-cloud.  A purely accidental circumstance led the physician Galvani, at Bologna, to trace the mysterious element, under conditions entirely novel, both of development and application.  In this new form it became, in the hands of Davy, the instrument of the most extraordinary chemical operations; and earths and alkalis, touched by the creative wire, started up into metals that float on water, and kindle in the air.  At a later period, the closest affinities are observed between electricity and magnetism, on the one hand; while, on the other, the relations of polarity are detected between acids and alkalis.  Plating and gilding henceforth become electrical processes.  In the last applications of the same subtle medium, it has become the messenger of intelligence across the land and beneath the sea; and is now employed by the astronomer to ascertain the difference of longitudes, to transfer the beats of the clock from one station to another, and to record the moment of his observations with automatic accuracy.  How large a share has been borne by America in these magnificent discoveries and applications, among the most brilliant achievements of modern science, will sufficiently appear from the repetition of the names of Franklin, Henry, Morse, Walker, Mitchell, Lock, and Bond.

VERSATILITY OF GENIUS.