“ The world will probably be converted into a great lake, or liquid globe of fire—a vast ocean of fire in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves or billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall forever be full of a quick sense within and without: their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their feet, their loins, and their vitals, shall forever be full of a glowing, melting fire fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements ”

“ THE waves upon water are always objects of pleasing interest. From the ripples of the pond to the billows of the ocean, their beauty and their sublimity are sources of perennial inspiration to the poet and the painter. But there is an invisible realm of air-waves of a far subtler and more wonderful order. The water-waves belong to the sensuous eye and to art, but the aerial pulsations belong to the eye of the imagination and to science, the great revelator of the super-sensuous harmonies of the universe. Water-waves afford an agreeable spectacle, and have little further concern for us ”

“ Fire, air, earth, and water, light and darkness, heat and cold, gravity and levity, all the "prime sensible qualities" of nature, find each its place in this stupendous magazine of knowledge. From ether to anthracite, from a man to a mite or a mushroom, from dreams and influences to arts and sciences, from the starry firmament to the costermonger's cart or the cobbler's stall, no substance, quality, or accident is excluded. No natural process, no commercial product, but has its separate "History." The despised handicraftsman is to yield up his obscure secrets as well as the scientific artisan. ”

“ There is food for contemplation which never runs short; you are gazing at an object which is always growing clearer, and yet always, in the very act of growing clearer, presenting new mysteries. And this arresting and absorbing spectacle, so fascinating by its variety, is at the same time overwhelming by its greatness; so that those who have devoted their lives to the contemplation scarcely ever fail to testify to the endless delight it gives them, and also to the overpowering awe with which from time to time it surprises them. ”

“ All vibrates in the little world, and this universal restlessness of matter, this 'atomic music,' to continue the metaphor of the ancient philosopher, is like the harmony of worlds; and is it not true that the imagination is equally bewildered and the spirit equally troubled by the spectacle of the illimitable immensity of the universe, and by the consideration of the millions of atoms which people a drop of water? ”

“ It is saddening to be told that there shall never be another Haydn; that the world shall never be gladdened with the bright fancies and graceful sentiment of a new Mozart; that even the idealities of Schumann are fashions of the irrevocable past; that we shall wrestle with melodies as if they were Greek roots, and suffer all the pangs of purgatory before we can work out a tune. ”

“ Whatever it be in thought, deed, or will that works among us now to break up the home, to make the home idea mean and contemptible in the eyes of woman, or to unfit her for domestic duties, and disgust her with her proper work, whatever now acts on her high wrought nature, her ambition, her self love, to turn her steps away from the home-life, and inflate her with visions of a career in the public places outside—this, whatever it be, is working against the best interests, the hope, the happiness of the human race. ”

“ At the touch of science they have lent a voice to the dumb past. Raising the veil of antiquity, they have unrolled page after page of ancient history, written neither with pen nor pencil, but stamped on the rude implements of war or the chase, imprinted on the few threads of decaying tissue that inwrap the crumbling skeleton, engraved on the bracelet of bronze or silver that encircled the slender wrist of some prehistoric beauty, or chased on the brooch of gold that clasped the mantle of some renowned but forgotten chieftain. ”

“ Our institutions do not cultivate us, as they might and should; and the chief cause of the failure is plain. It is the strength of party spirit; and so blighting is its influence, so fatal to self-culture, that I feel myself bound to warn every man against it who has any desire of improvement. I do not tell you it will destroy your country. It wages a worse war against yourselves. Truth, justice, candor, fair-dealing, sound judgment, self-control, and kind affections, are its natural and perpetual prey. I do not say that you must take no side in politics. ”

“ The history of the growth of this remarkable mechanism, that has now become so potent in the operations of human society, has an epic interest of grander meaning than can be found in any history of those destructive spasms in society that are sung and celebrated as war. The steam-engine is a triumph of peace, a victory of the pacific and constructive agencies of civilization, a conquest of Nature through the pursuits of science, and a symbol of the rise of modern industrialism and its successful conflict with the malign military spirit by which the world has been scourged through all the past. ”

“ What respect can they ever have been taught for the temple of their bodies, or for the cardinal institutes of nature and of society? What regard for others can ever have been inculcated upon them when they think that money can atone for the utter degradation of a fellow-creature? Surely it is time to cry aloud and spare not, when men can pass for "educated" to whom the very elements of a true science of life are unknown, and who, with all their literary, professional, and social acquirements, are willing to descend in their daily practice to the lowest depths of infamy. ”

“ The question of scientific education, then, undoubtedly the greatest question of our time, is simply this: "Shall we study the genuine or the spurious universe? Shall the minds of students be developed and moulded by direct exercise upon the phenomena and problems of Nature and present human experience, or shall they be cut off from the living world and trained in the acquisition of old knowledges, just as if science had never arisen?" This question may seem to many a futile one, as they will say that in this age the influence of science cannot be escaped. ”

“ The first and greatest need of all is that of a commanding and systematic philosophy of morals, of religion, and of life. We have not got it yet. It is still to be made. We have only hopes of it—only glimpses of it. The first serious task before us is to elaborate that philosophy. We don't know yet the power of system. We have been taught to despise system. We have been taught that system runs to dogma, that dogma runs to death, and that if we are radicals, if we are free religionists, we must steer clear of system above all. Why, friends, is not the universe a system? ”

“ If he is a salmon, after a few months' preparation to strengthen his sinews and test his power, he goes down to the sea, there to dwell, and feed, and grow, gaining wonderfully in size, drawing his sustenance from the exhaustless storehouse of the world, and coaling back to man, in a few months, a magnificent embodiment of strength and beauty, bringing to the lord of the universe five or ten pounds of as delicious food as ever delighted a gourmand's palate, or satisfied a hungry man's stomach. ”

“ Finally, modern science has discovered and set forth the magnificent idea of the continuity of creation. It has proved that the development of the universe has been a progress from good to better, a progress not without reactions and catastrophes, but still a benign advance toward ever higher forms of life, with ever greater capacities for ever finer enjoyments. It has laid a firm foundation for man's instinctive faith in his own future. From the sight and touch of what the eternal past has wrought, it deduces a sure trust in what the eternal future has in store. ”

“ We can only look "through a glass darkly." We can see and enjoy the light of the sun, but, though great and leaned volumes be written, who can fully explain all the laws and all the wonders of light, one of the gentlest and most ethereal, and yet one of the most interesting and powerful elements of the universe? ”

“ SHALL the Eye of the Universe suffer from ophthalmia? Shall the orb of celestial fire in the incorruptible heavens—type of purity and perfection—noblest symbol of God—be stained and blackened with impurities? Such were the questions indignantly asked when it began to be whispered about that there are spots of darkness on the face of the sun. ”

“ While Professor Peirce has the tenacity of grasp and power of endurance which enable him to make the most intricate and tedious numerical computations, he is still more distinguished by intensity and fervor of action in every part of his nature, an enthusiasm for whatever is noble and beautiful in the world or in art, in fiction or real life; an exalted moral strength and purity; a glowing imagination which soars into the seventh heavens; an insight and a keenness of external observation which make the atom as grand to him as a planet ”

“ Now, how does the doctrine of Evolution answer to these tests? It has arisen as an outgrowth of the latest and highest knowledge, has steadily made its way, in the teeth of inexorable criticism, to a large acceptance among the most disciplined thinkers of the period. It has been simmering in the minds of men of science for a century, and has now reached a point where it is capable of being formulated; where it is of great and acknowledged value for the guidance of scientific exploration, and it thus answers to the highest uses of theory. ”

“ May it not, mounting the winged horse of analogy, when the good old drudge-horse induction gives out, fly through tracts of space and time, not yet laid down on the map? May not some men have insights into the working of laws yet unexplored, such as Mozart had into the laws of music, and Shakespeare into the laws of the human heart? Assuredly you cannot say nay, in the name of science, which, as we agree, being confined to the phenomenal and relative, has no right to pronounce either one way or the other, as to what, by supposition, lies beyond the phenomenal and relative. ”

“ How many men in the ministry to-day believe in the doctrine of verbal inspiration which our fathers held, and how many of us have frankly told the people that we do not believe it, and so lifted off their Bible's page the heavy cloud of difficulties and inconsistencies which that doctrine laid there? How many of us hold that the everlasting punishment of the wicked is a clear and certain truth of revelation? But how many of us who do not hold that have ever said a word to tell men that we thought they might be Christians, and yet keep a hope for the souls of all God's children? ”

“ For, after all, such a helper of man outside of humanity, the truth will not allow us to see. The dim and shadowy outlines of the superhuman deity fade slowly away from before us; and, as the mist of his presence floats aside, we perceive with greater and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander and nobler figure—of Him who made all gods, and shall unmake them. ”

“ Science is to me not only a proof of man's intellectual superiority, and the seal of his emancipation from the tyranny of ignorance, but the pledge of an unimaginable progress in the future. By the beautiful uniformities of law, which it discovers in Nature, it discharges the human mind of those early superstitions which saw a despot god in every bush, whose wanton will paralyzed the free flight of our intellect, and debauched our best affections. ”

“ Philosophy, as he views it, is not merely a skillfully reasoned body of speculation; it is nothing, if not true—nothing, unless it compels assent as the highest of verities. Science passes into philosophy as it furnishes generalizations from all orders of phenomena which merge into truths that are universal. Claiming no ideal perfection or completeness, it gathers established principles from all scientific sources into systematic expression, and thus acquires a harmony as perfect as the discovered harmonies of nature, and a unity as absolute as the demonstrated unity of the universe. ”

“ Justice is thus not only neglected, but injustice is wrought in all directions, so that government at last becomes the instrument and partner of the great agencies of oppression and wrong-doing in society. Nor is this the worst: instead of concentrating its attention upon the transcendent duty of working out the great ends of justice, and laboring to improve and perfect the methods and appliances for attaining this object, it stands convicted as the open and shameless perpetrator of wrong, violator of the most sacred rights of citizens and the defiant executor of palpable and rank injustice. ”

“ The membrane of the ear receives the torrent of motion, and transmits it with all its harmonies. In an orchestra, where scores of instruments are playing through the whole compass of the scale, the air is cut into waves by every complexity of vibration—grave tones mingle with shrill, soft with harsh, fundamentals are merged in overtones, and the storm of impulses is shot with the speed of rifle-bullets against the tympanum; and yet there is no confusion. In all their infinite diversity of qualities the waves are legible to the little membrane. ”

“ As Darwinism has won its way to respectability, as it has ceased to be the rash conjecture of some hasty speculator, and is received with all the honors of grave scientific discussion, divines have naturally come to look upon it with different eyes. They have gradually sidled up toward the object which at first struck them as so dark and portentous a phenomenon, and discovered that after all it is not of so diabolic a nature as they had imagined. Its breath does not wither up every lofty aspiration, and every worthy conception of the destiny of humanity. ”

“ And so it turns out that he who has been buried under a mountain of execration for using science to drag the world into the abyss of materialism, is precisely the man who has demonstrated that no possible extension of science can ever lead one step toward that dread abyss. He has taught us that if science could attain perfection and predict the movements of all the atoms of Nature for thousands of years to come, as it now predicts eclipses, it would not be one whit nearer the solution or explanation of the mystery of the relation of mind and matter than it was in its infancy. ”