Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 29th, 1867 (IA b22315263).pdf/27

 force, extending from that which influences the great atmospheric ocean to that which regulates the movements to be seen within the microscopic cell of organized life. This idea is partly analogous to a noble suggestion lately thrown out by a distinguished Fellow of this College. Dr. Odling, whilst demonstrating Mr. Graham's discovery of the existence of hydrogen in what some suppose to be sidereal or meteoric iron, compared that gas with other gases found in telluric iron; he then adverted to discoveries made through the new science of spectrum analysis, and showed by those discoveries the identity of the gases in the group of stars of which α Lyræ is the type with the hydrogen in meteoric iron; and he then claimed from this identity an evidence of "one universal chemistry."

I trust that those of my audience who may be least familiar with the language of science will not fail to have perceived the intensity of the light which now dawns upon us, applicable as it is not only to a further discovery of the general laws of nature, but especially to those