The Summary of Physics Restored

2As my mind turned over Nature’s empire, laws, order, governance, harmony, effects, causes, and, finally, her immense resources, wonder first seized it. For minds of a liberal cast, wonder is as much a spur to acquiring knowledge as it is evidence of ignorance. It carries the mind upwards, and through that movement kindles the desire to gain knowledge of what one is ashamed not to know. Growing warm through such exercise, my mind brought many decrees of ancient and dominant philosophy back to the anvil and refused to assent to them. For at first Nature seemed to offer from afar, as though from a distant borderland of truth, a different light, dim and uncertain through the clouds. At length, as its radiance grew stronger, the dullness of the clouds was overcome and disclosed a surer light. Bathed in it, my mind became clearer and more confident in bringing Nature’s secrets to light.