Correlation of Physical Forces
Of late years experimental philosophers have been occupied with the investigation of a profound problem. Formerly, the most brilliant phenomena of nature were attributed to the existence of imponderable fluids. But the Correlation of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical affinity, as varying manifestations of force, attributable to modifications of motion in matter, now employs our subtlest thinkers—Faraday and Grove, Wheatstone and De la Rive. These researches extend even to the confines of the moral phenomena. The chemistry of nature differs from that of the laboratory, and the difference has been attributed, not simply to organization, but to the vital force—a power found only in living organisms. Yet, at length, the laboratory of Hoffman imitates the processes of nature, especially in plants, and produces some of the most delicate of the perfumes of flowers and fruits, and even seems on the very verge of the manufacture of some of its greatest treasures—such as quinine. Some are staggered by the steady march of scientific research into the most sacred sanctuaries of life, and recoil from investigations which trace the growth of the cell in the ovary into the perfect man; as though mystery were essential to faith; or, if it were so, as though there is the slightest risk that in ages to come man will have so stolen the sacred fruit that no mystery will remain to be solved.—Sir James Kay Shuttleworth on Public Education.