has gone down and found the tracks of the eternal God in the polypi
and the starfish under the sea and the majesty of the great Jehovah
encamped under the gorgeous curtains of the dahlia. It has studied the
spots on the sun, and the larvae in a beech leaf, and the light under
fire-fly's wing, and the terrible eye glance of a condor pitching from
Chimborazo. It has studied the myriads of animalculae that make up the
phosphorescence in a ship's wake, and the mighty maze of suns, and
spheres, and constellations, and galaxies that blaze on in the march
of God. Healthful curiosity has stood by the inventor until forces
that were hidden for ages came to wheels, and levers, and shafts, and
shuttles--forces that fly the air, or swim the sea, or cleave the
mountain until the earth jars, and roars, and rings, and crackles, and
booms, with strange mechanism, and ships with nostrils of hot steam
and yokes of fire draw the continents together.
I say nothing against healthful curiosity. May it have other Leyden
jars, and other electric batteries, and other voltaic piles, and
other magnifying glasses with which to storm the barred castles of the
natural world until it shall surrender its last secret. We thank God
for the geological curiosity of Professor Hitchcock, and the
mechanical curiosity of Liebig, and the zooelogical curiosity of
Cuvier, and the inventive curiosity of Edison; but we must admit that
unhealthful and irregular inquisitiveness has rushed thousands and
tens of thousands into ruin.
Eve just tasted the fruit. She was curious to find out how it tasted,
and that