THE WORLD VERSUS MATTER 283 



sequently no less provinces of natural history than are paleontology, 

 botany, zoology and anthropology. 



For the ends of general education, the study of natural history 

 should beget the habit of mind of demanding the widest and exactest 

 knowledge attainable touching any situation in life where decision and 

 action are necessary; and it should provide the individual with a large 

 fund of information, all so vitally correlated and intertwined as to give 

 every faculty of the mind the greatest measure of sensitiveness and 

 avidity for new knowledge and higher enjoyment. It should create a 

 great complex of knowledge, the whole logical and rational substance of 

 which should be penetrated through and through by a subdued emotional 

 appreciation of the beauty there is in the great whole. 



Such a knowledge would, perforce, hold the world in reverence even 

 after all due regard were given to those portions of it which are un- 

 seemly and ugly and evil. 



For the ends of scientific education and research, the study of such 

 natural history would serve to counteract the tendencies toward sophis- 

 tication which appear to be an inevitable concomitant of the rigorous 

 mathematical treatment of such portions of nature as are amenable to 

 these methods. Whatever the department of science to which any life 

 may be dedicated, sufficient attention should be given to what is funda- 

 mentally involved in the elemental processes of observing, naming and 

 classifying, to insure against the perils of ever fofgetting that these 

 processes are really fundamental to all natural knowledge. 



To attempt to banish these simple operations from the august pres- 

 ence of exact science because one may to a considerable extent carry 

 them on more or less automatically and unconsciously is folly, sure and 

 disastrous, no less than would be the attempt to banish one's feet from 

 the act of walking or his hands from piano-playing, because these mem- 

 bers may do their parts, after once being well schooled, with little or no 

 attention to them. 



