THE PRINCE CONSORT AT ABERDEEN.
Jr is one of the mistakes of modern systematic reasoning to sup- pose that human perception is only attained through a form of appeal which can be reduced to words. Such a system does not simply contract the influence of the reasoner in appealing to a fraction of the faculties with which man is endowed, but it has undoubtedly contributed to contract the action of our species, the resources which are available for the benefit of the human race, and even life itself. However, there are agencies at work which powerfully tend to counteract this narrowing tendency, and few recent events more distinctly belong to that category, than the address delivered by the PrinDe•Cousort;at the opening of the British Association.
Ostensibly and in terms, the main purpose of the Prince Cone sort's address was to remind his hearers how, in the constant ex- pansion of the field of scientific observation, the human intellect is liable to become distracted by the incessant diversity of view, and breaking away into separate paths, to lose the strength which it derives from combination of labour. He reminded us how, en rare occasions, an intellect like that of an Aristotle, a Bacon, or a Humboldt, may arise to grasp the 'whole existing knowledge of scientific truths, and restore themto unity ; but there is a limit to the-capacity-of such men, and the scientific republia unites the advantages derived from the divisions of employments and the combination of labour, giving to the hands and heads of many men a unity of spirit and result. We not only group more facts by that process, but we acquire a " consciousness of our knowledge." The so-called practical man observes what his special work forces upon him, and be forms his notions with re- ference to that particular work. The man of science observes
what he intends to observe, and knows -why he intends it. He separates the incongruous, briugs his attained knowledge into a
system, and, by combining those elements is which we have been enabled to discover the internal connexion which the Almighty has implanted in them, we are encouraged to retain some hope of comprehending the boundlessness of His creation, and of grappling with the laws which govern both mind and matter." It is by this process that science enables us to construct the tools and machinery of material existence, and to employ those new im- provements for the elevation of life, so that we may free it more and more from barbaric distractiops and debasing obstructions. We not only make the stubborn elements more subservient to what we call our " welfare" ; we not only elevate the understanding, so that it expands to contemplate " God's truths, God's laws, as manifested in His creation" ; but we school our obedience, and with it acquire that loving willingness which is indeed the genuine reconcilement of the old. perplexities—destiny and free will. But the Prince Consort brought something to the representative assembly more than the spoken words. When ho said, " the Queen wishes her people to know this as well as yourselves," he testified to some of the greatest influences 'which are now govern- ing our social life, and thus added to the services which the Queen has already rendered to the English people. In other countries, we have seen Sovereigns " patronizing" scientific labours ; we have seen them giving money—giving their pre- sence, in some cases giving their actual cooperation ; but all these things are different and inferior to •the avowal of a wish that the whole people of this country should consciously be aware, not simply that their Sovereign goes with them in their most elevated pursuits, but also that she is anxious for them to be conscious of the companionship. And the appeal to companionship has a peculiar force in this free country, where we are in the habit of sharing the government of ourselves. It might be supposed, that in this Commonwealth, the Court, deprived of certain barriers, would be liable to dangerous intrusions, like those which beset the White House at Washington. If our Sovereign appeals to a com- mon humanity, consents to express a wish which might or might not be open to public acceptance, our public, undisciplined to submissiveness, will aooept the words in their full import, and with a free choice. There is, therefore, a nobleheartedness, a generous courage, in this declaration of common feeling between the Crown and all ranks in the country. Is it not also one of the most eloquent avowals that we have yet had of the common pur- pose which animates the community ; of that wide development of public opinion, which lends such strength to our institutions, and gives to our throne a stability, and an influence, unknown in other countries ? The bodily presence of the Prince Consort at the Council of our great scientific republic was in itself a guaran- tee for the substantial and veritable existence of this common feeling and action; and the sight of the man sitting where he did, the tone of his voice speaking as he did, conveyed more than the mere tenor of the words in his discourse.
Does this community of action and thought, this straight- forward sincerity of expression between the Crown and the repre- sentative body at Aberdeen, lower the dignity of the throne, en- danger the respect held towards it, or expose it to undue intru- sions? Is it a "confounding of ranks" ? Has it the " levelling" tendency ascribed to the spread of education? Of late years some old distinctions have been fearfully confounded. The extension of the telescope has not only dissipated nebulous notions enter- tained by the newest- philosophy of yesterday, but has brought within our perception stars computed to exist at distances so vast that ten thousand years must have passed since the flash of light has left that very orb which we see now. At the same time the microscope enables us to discern the myriads of creatures which people spaces so minute that they seem but fractions or atoms of other creatures. The mind is perplexed apd lost amid this confounding of great and small; our notions of time and space are bewildered ; and the hasty as-
sumptions which we have made on perusing the modern book of
geology are rebuked. But while we have thus been checked in. our premature conclusions, we have discovered, with extensions in every direction that transcend the power of the mind to follow them, a harmony, a ceaselessness of life, and a perpetual de- velopment, which have increased our apprehension of universal beneficence. The enlargement of vision has not simply enabled
us to master the agencies around us ; it has not only taught us a more modest, if more elevated, piety : it has, as it were, recoiled upon our own life, it has powerfully contributed to chastise pre- sumption in every form, and has perhaps as much as any other result of recent " progress," helped to teach, to all ranks, poli- tical and practical Christianity.
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