Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/479

Rh and magnitudes and courses of the planetary orbs, he would require no science to instruct him. He discerns, however, only what is apparent, and this discernment does not disclose to him what is real. To discover this, he must put forth an intellectual effort; he must inquire, he must have recourse to astronomy; and astronomy will teach him that what is real in the stupendous spectacle before him is very different from what is apparent. This science, therefore, is founded on a distinction between the real and the apparent, between the obvious and the hidden. It, the  of the heavens, deals with the real; man's ordinary observation of the celestial luminaries, his  deals only with the apparent. Deny this distinction and you extinguish the science. In like manner, chemistry is a science, inasmuch as it treats of the real as distinguished from the apparent. If no distinction existed, or if no distinction were to be made between the apparent and the real, in other words, if the apparent and the real were identical or coincident, there could be no such science as chemistry, for, in that case, the internal structure and composition of bodies would be disclosed to our most superficial observation, and no science would be required to teach us the elements of which they are composed. But here, too, the apparent is not the real. A superficial glance at natural objects discloses to us the obvious, apparent; but science, inquiry, investigation, these are required to lay before us the hidden real facts of nature with which chemistry deals.