The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, October 1884, No. 1Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Science
The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, October 1884, No. 1
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
I thank him for having left us for this afternoon the other half of
the subject, and I want to say something to you about science. And I
approach it from the side of ignorance, not as a scientific man, but
as one whose education in youth, and ever since, has been neglected on
the scientific side, and who looks at science from the point of view
of desire and aspiration, not from the standpoint of satisfaction and
achievement. Certainly science has done a great deal for us in the mere
physical and material realm, and of that aspect Dr. Wilkinson spoke this
morning. It has enlarged, if not our comforts, certainly the material of
our comforts. It has enlarged, if not our satisfaction, at all events
our content. It is to science we owe the fact that we have so largely
increased the facilities also for our learning. Science has made for
us voyaging and travel easy; science has bound the different parts of
our nation together with iron bands; science enables us readily and
quickly to communicate with one another; science has formed our houses,
preserving us from cold; science has illuminated our houses, and redeemed
from darkness and night the hours that can be given to social intercourse
and study. In innumerable ways, science has added to our material and
moral well-being.
But it is of science as an educator that the words I have to speak
this afternoon are to be directed. I am sure nature has another aspect
than that of a mere servitor, and is a material educator. So science
has another aspect than that of adding to our mere material and bodily
comfort. Science ministers also to our intellect and our spirit, like
literature. I shall not undertake to put these in the balance, each over
against the other, and see which is the better of the two. Now, it is
scarcely necessary for me to point this to you who are pursuing both
literature and science, that both of these develop the mind. Science as
well as literature develops the soul and the spirit of man, the inner
life. Science is teaching us to observe. It is teaching us other things,
but that is all I wish to say to you this afternoon. It is teaching us
to observe—how to use our eyes. It is astonishing how many men and women
there are in this world who do not know how to use their eyes. Science
is making us observant of the minuter as well as of the grander of God’s
works. The motto of the C. L. S. C. stands on the wall before you, “We
study the Word and the Works of God.” The word written in man’s heart,
that literature opens to us; the works that are written on all nature,
that science opens to us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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