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teristics which complete the thoroughly English aspect of the whole county. The churches have been mostly modernized, but are usually picturesquely situated; and though, as a rule, Surrey is deficient in ecclesiastical architecture, yet Compton, the chancel of Stoke d'Abernon, and Peper Harow, as restored by Pugin, are good specimens of the Norman era. St. Mary's Guildford, Abinger, and West Horsley represent the Early English; while, of the later styles, Lingfield, Blechingley, and Godalming are conspicuous examples. The little village of Limpsfield, with its Norman tower, is a genuine bit of English rural life; and many a quiet hamlet may yet be found in the sequestered nooks of the county, as a subject for the artist. The lanes around Wotton and Godalming have been made familiar by the pencil of Creswick and others, and the whole of the southern slopes of the Downs have long been the favourite camping-ground of some of our best English masters.

We could linger long, did the time permit, among the bygone records of the county; in those green meadows which, under the woody slopes of Cooper's Hill, still retain their ancient name of Runnimede; within the walls of the old priory where erst met the Parliament of Merton; amidst the scanty traces which serve to mark the sites of the ancient royal palaces of Kennington and Bermondsey House; or under the trees, which are all that remain of Nonsuch, once the pride of England.

If it be indeed the fate of some of the most memorable as well as the loveliest spots in England finally to fall a prey to those ever-increasing exigencies of modern civilization, which already dot the Surrey hills with villas, and threaten gradually to absorb the whole county north of the Downs, there is the more need of local histories. It is their legitimate and not unimportant function to perpetuate in our recollections places and scenes which are fast passing away from our eyes. Nay, we will even venture to assort that those deserve more than local gratitude who devote themselves to ascertain property, preserve the genealogies of families, record illustrious actions, uphold the memory of great characters, and bring to view the peculiar modes of life, and the laws and customs of past ages.'

CONNEXION OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES.*

ONE of the most singular among the many strange facts in

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the history of Man, is the contrast between the present and all antecedent ages in the manner of interrogating the physical phenomena of the universe, amidst which he has his existence. Stretching backwards over the intermediate centuries of darkness, or fitful and imperfect knowledge, and resting on what were the higher and happier periods of Greek and Roman culture, we still find this marvellous contrast in all that regards the natural sciences. Athens, the eye of Greece, native to famous wits,' was such only in relation to arts, eloquence, poetry, and abstract philosophy. Even the mathematical attainments of the Greeks, save in a limited number of instances, failed in conducting them to those particular discoveries of which this great science is at once the instrument and interpreter. Their logic, even under its most subtle forms, lent them little aid when applied to the phenomena of the natural world. Observation lost its value by the want of method, and by the thousand dreams of popular superstition or false philosophy with which it was blended. Experiment was scarcely recognised as a principle or method of research, necessary though it is now felt to be as the only assured step towards the discovery of truth. Individual exceptions doubtless occur to this remark; and if called upon to name the most striking of these, we should at once refer to the instance of Archimedes as a man who, better than any other of his age, understood the true principle and practice of scientific research. But the general fact remains as we have stated it, and well deserves note as a curious page in the history of the human understanding.

The two works which we have placed at the head of this article are both remarkable in its illustration. We place them together,

*1. Kosmos. Entwurf einer physischen Wellbeschreitung. Von Alexander von Humboldt.

2. Cosmos. A Physical Description of the Universe. By Alexander von Humboldt. Vols. I., II., III., and IV. Translated under the superintendence of Major-General Sabine, R.A., D.C.L., V.P., and F.R.S., &c. London. 1850-51-52-57.

3. On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences. By Mary Somerville. Ninth Edition, carefully revised. London. 1858.

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because, though widely differing in conception, style, and method, they have one main object in common, to which we wish to direct the notice of our readers;-that, namely, of expounding the relations of the several physical sciences to one another, and those especial connexions, the results of modern discovery, which tend to give coalescence and unity of laws to the whole. The real grandeur of the subject so defined can scarcely be exaggerated. To those not familiar with it, a statement thus simple will convey but a faint and partial impression of all that is implied under the phrase of Connexion of the Physical Sciences;'-of the genius and labour which have been given to this branch of research; of the magnitude of the discoveries thence derived; and of the profound speculations as well as strict inductions which have grown out of the inquiry. In commenting on the works before us, we shall seek to prove this to our readers by examples which may illustrate the bearings of the subject, show something of the vast attainments already made, and suggest the paths still open to future discovery.

We are well justified in applying the term of profound to this topic. The process by which particular facts, single and detached in their original observation, are submitted to common laws, and that still higher grade of induction by which particular laws are brought to coalesce under others more comprehensive, these efforts and results of human reason become the noblest attestation of the powers committed to man by his Creator, in his relations to the universe around him. The observations of the senses, aided by new instruments of exquisite exactness, and the innumerable new facts thus acquired, form but one element-however essential this element be-in the growth and present grandeur of physical science. The processes of thought itself have been raised into new and higher forms of activity. While induction has been rendered in every case more logical and precise, and the formulæ of number, weight, and measure have been applied to phenomena never before submitted to such manner of scrutiny, there has existed concurrently an extension of inquiry to objects of loftier speculation and theory than were ever dreamt of in any prior age of philosophy. And this, which is true as to each separate branch of modern science, is especially true in what relates to the connexion of physical phenomena, through those great natural elements or forces which have common action on all. Here, as will presently be seen, we touch everywhere on very abstruse problems, in many of which metaphysical thought mingles itself largely with the more simple conditions of physical research. On these confines human reason is often compelled to stop short or recede. Never

theless, the boundary is nowhere so rigidly defined as to prohibit the effort to press beyond; and physical science abounds in instances where a seemingly impassible barrier has been broken through by happy accident or a fresh impulse of genius, and new and still more fertile fields have been laid open to research. Before enlarging, however, on these topics, we must revert briefly to the two works before us. We might have cited many others, which, though less explicitly, do yet, in one point or other, embrace these mutual relations of the sciences; invited, or even compelled, to this by the importance such relations have assumed in every part of physical philosophy. No branch of science can now be treated of singly, or without clearly denoting the connexions which are every day becoming known to us as closer and more stringent. We still give the name of Naturalist to one who collects his specimens or facts within some single area of physical inquiry; and such men are, in truth, eminently useful in the work they perform. But no one can now be named a Natural Philosopher who does not look beyond the science he especially professes, and trace its kindred and connexions with others. Lines converge, circles coalesce, partitions disappear, and there is no portion of such knowledge left alone and apart in the great arena of physical research.

A few months only have elapsed since the life of Humboldt came to a close. It would be superfluous to dwell here upon the name and reputation of this remarkable man, rendered familiar to us by seventy years of energetic labour as a traveller, a naturalist, a philosopher, and a writer. His high eminence in each and all of these capacities is attested by the concurrent opinions of his scientific contemporaries, of the two generations through which he held his untired career. A large share of poetic temperament, blended with his graver faculties, tended much to give light and lustre to the labours of this long life. He gazed on the face of nature over the globe, with senses awake to the beauty and grandeur of creation, as well as to those great physical problems, whether of organic or inorganic existence, which claim the strictest science for their scrutiny. He had a singular faculty, surpassing in this respect every other naturalist and writer of his age, of bringing together those great relations and analogies in the natural history of the globe, which raise geography into a science; while by a full command and bold use of the copious language of his country, he greatly enriched the vocabulary by which such relations are described. This rare combination of qualities, aided by a genial temper and freedom from certain cares which perplex the lives of so many men both in literature and science, doubtless contributed to the

maintenance, in his ninetieth year, of the faculties which illustrated the earlier part of Baron Humboldt's career. Some few philosophers-or those so called-of ancient as well as modern time, have reached the same age. But no one has compassed such a work as the Cosmos' under this weight of years; or shown the same faculty of keeping pace with all the various knowledge of his time, and with the almost new creation of some branches of science, which in their vigorous growth have already reached those of earlier date.

Yet this work, however remarkable, has certain blemishes both of design and execution; and these, it may be added, strikingly illustrative of the intellectual qualities of its author. The conception expressed under the title of the Cosmos,' (one drawn from the most ancient schools of philosophy, and admirably denoted by Aristotle), though repeatedly defined in the Introduction, as well as elsewhere in the work, seems never thoroughly to have satisfied his own mind, and we believe has very partially been conveyed to that of his readers. In his Preface, Humboldt alludes to the half century during which the image of such a work had been floating in undefined outlines (in unbestimmten Umrissen) before his imagination. This illdefined character of the design pervades, we are obliged to say, every part of its execution. The scheme itself was too vast for completeness, and for that proportion of parts which such a scheme requires. Here, indeed, Humboldt was in some sort a martyr to his own multitudinous knowledge. The memories of a prolonged life of travel and study, and of personal intercourse with every scientific man of his age, crowded upon him so exuberantly, that the order and method needful to so vast a theme was often lost to his view. On certain topics, such as Physical Geography and Natural History at large, he dwells with a fondness which shows the strong hold they ever had on his mind; and his successful labours in these great fields gave him full right to this almost parental predilection. But it is exercised at the expense of that due adjustment of parts which is essential to the professed plan of the work.

These remarks especially apply to the later volumes of the 'Cosmos,' and they point to another default, inevitable indeed from the very nature of the plan, but infringing much on its unity and completeness. Such a work could not be compassed at once, or in any very brief time. Twelve years have elapsed since the first volume was published: death came upon the illustrious labourer before he had ended his task. Meanwhile science, in its every part, was undergoing rapid and marvellous changes; not merely by onward movement, and the discovery

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