Natiiral History in the English Counties. 475 



energy, concentration, and effect to native talents; to examine the great 

 laboratory of the earth ; to establish the locality of natural objects ; to 

 trace analogies with distant parts of the earth ; to explore worlds of or- 

 ganised beings till lately unheard of, and to make acquaintance with 

 others now in existence, of which we were before ignorant; to collect, 

 and to arrange in a simple, harmonious, and intelligible form, the various 

 objects of natural science; and, in fact, to trace the finger of the Almighty 

 in his multiplied and magnificent operations, are some of the sublime ob- 

 jects of this Society ; and if by some they may be considered futile, because 

 they do not seem immediately to produce their return in pounds, shillings, 

 and pence, it is because a certain preparation of mind is necessary beyond the 

 limited calculations of commercial views, to appreciate these objects. But,Sir, 

 when the handicraft of Naples discovered the application of the magnet, who 

 could have foreseen it would have led to the navigation of the world ? 

 When Galileo found that, by the adjustment of a few convex glasses, distant 

 objects could be approximated, who could have believed that it would have 

 led to such an intimate acquaintance with the heavenly regions? And when 

 the Marquess of Worcester published his History of Inventions, or still more 

 lately. Dr. Black, his History of Latent Heat, could any man have foretold 

 that it would be followed by so gigantic an application of the power of 

 steam as we have lived to see? And if such results are the consequences 

 of man's labours, what may we not expect from closely attending to those 

 of Omnipotence ? Mr. William Vernon has strikingly observed, in a small 

 work well worthy your attention, ' That to a mind educated in the school 

 of natural history, mankind are indebted for the most extensively beneficial 

 of all the discoveries of the present age.' The same process of thought which 

 led to the observations of the habits of the swallow or the cuckoo, when 

 applied to the diseases of the cow, enabled the immortal Jenner to make the 

 discovery of vaccination, which, with few exceptions, has preserved mankind 

 from one of the greatest of human afflictions. But the mind as well as the 

 body must be fed with milk before it can bear strong meats. The uses of 

 such societies as ours are to adapt their aliment to all classes. The philo- 

 sopher of many years' standing will have abundant opportunities of enlarging 

 his knowledge; and whether he takes the comprehensive views of the 

 geologist, or descends to particulars with the naturalist ; whether he exa- 

 mines the formations of a world, or the elegant arrangements of the petals 

 of a rose ; the mountains of the Himalaya, or the wings of a butterfly; the 

 plains of a Pampas, or the convolution of a turbo ; the variegated carpet of 

 nature, or the no less varied coat of a caterpillar ; — he will be insensibly 

 led by his sublime contemplations ' from nature up to nature's God.' The 

 child, whose time has been hitherto spent in the study of the dead languages, 

 the practical application of which is confined to two or three professions, 

 will have his eyes opened to new objects, from which his father's have long 

 been closed, and his mind directed to a language more ancient than that of 

 Homer, the language of nature, a book which he can never lay aside with 

 an unholy thought. If the human mind, even in the humblest form, cannot 

 be as agreeably entertained in such a sanctuary, as in the purlieus of a pot- 

 house ; if, when oppressed with disappointment and sorrow, it cannot here 

 find diversion which will both chasten and enlarge, elevate and refine it 

 from the foul dross of worldly anxieties, then deem this institution unworthy 

 of your patronage, and denounce its secretary as an impostor. Gentlemen, 

 I beg to conclude in the language of the best of our modern historians, Mr. 

 Sharon Turner: ' To be intelligent is now even more necessary than to be 

 affluent, because mind is become the invisible sovereign of the world ; and 

 they who cultivate its progress, being diffused every where in society, are the 

 tutors of the human race; they dictate the opinions, they fashion the con- 

 duct of men. To be illiterate, or to be imbecile, in this illumed day, is to 



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