t and cannot have the advantages of a scientific education,
but who can by this means get at least a rudimentary idea of some of the
natural laws with which they are coming in contact every hour, and
through which the inner man has constant communication with the outer
world. It may be, too, that many young students will be helped by these
plain general views of topics which their text-books will give them in
detail.

A knowledge of the real things in the objective world about us and the
laws that govern them in their inter-relations is of practical value to
every man, whatever his calling may be. Not only will it be of value
practically, but it will also be a constant source of interest and
pleasure. Man is so constituted that he must have something to be
interested in, and if he has no resources within himself he looks
elsewhere, and often to his hurt, mentally, morally, or otherwise. If he
could have an interest awakened in him for the study and contemplation
of the natural world he would then have a book to read that is always
open, always fresh, always new. He is dealing with facts and not theory,
except as he uses theory for getting at facts.

A man who is all theory is like "a rudderless ship on a shoreless sea."
All he really knows is that he is afloat, and if he lands at all it is
likely to be in an insane asylum. The mind, in order to keep its
balance, must have the solid foundation of real things. Theories and
speculations may be indulged in with safety only so long as they are
based on facts that we can go back to at all times and know that we are
on solid ground.

It is the desire and aim of all good men to make their nation a truly
great people, with a civilization the highest possible. The character of
all kinds of growth is largely determined by the character of the
material upon which it feeds. The study of natural law can never be
harmful, but is always beneficial, for the student is then working in
harmony with law. It is the violation of law that makes all the trouble
in the world--whether physical, moral, or social. When we speak of
natural law we do not confine ourselves to what is commonly known as
chemistry and physics, and the laws that govern the material world, but
include as well the laws of our own being, as intellectual and spiritual
units. For all law, physical, intellectual, and spiritual, is in a sense
natural.

All departments of science are simply branches of one great science, and