In the elaboration of each separate idea a compensating mutual relation with some other cognate idea is found which brings a fresh agency to bear upon, assimilate, or eltisli with it; such attrition, different from that which wastes and diminishes physical bodies, serving to sharpen and refine the mind, correct, enlarge, or perfect the idea. A mutual dependency of powers, faculties, and functions is also an interesting feature in labour, through which arises the reflection of itself upon itself, and the reaction of the votaries upon each other.

The philosopher would be helpless without the assistance of the mechanic, who furnishes him wherewith to pierce through space beyond the range of human ken; to measure the heavens as with a meteyard; to trace the erratic course and predict the occultation and reappearance of the comet; to calculate with unerring certainty the effect of every perturbation arising from the constant, yet change-producing influence of gravitation; to weigh the invisible air, and to note the delicate organism of microscopic animalculę.

The navigator, the engineer, the chemist are alike indebted to him; while on the other hand, the useful arts would stand still, the mechanic be no more than the primitive artificer, were it not for the successive substitutions or additions of forces, economical or supplementary, to construct which genius informs him; and his hand would be confined to the repetition of that labour which has no excitement of novelty, and is unrelieved by the prospect of improvement.

Thus Science claims Art as its handmaiden; Art reverences Science as her preceptor; each knit to the other with a benevolent sympathy.

In seeking to acquire an intimacy with the secrets of either, even in the seemingly motiveless or injudicious study of them, some collateral or accidental good may be expected, while from the neglect or unwise disregard of them nothing can proceed but regret. Although the great truth may lie beyond our reach, the honest and painstaking search for it may profit much; although the investigation mty fail to reach the ultimate goal of his wishes, he may be entertained by many a pleasing diversion on the way.

Royal Society of Victoria