303 

 PROCEEDINGS OF PROVINCIAL SOCIETIES. 



WORCESTERSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



Wb have great pleasure in recording the increasing prosperity of 

 this Society, and the rapid progress it has made in promoting scien- 

 tific inquiry in the several branches of Natural History. During 

 the past session, a series of highly interesting lectures have been de- 

 livered on various subjects, including one by the Rev. John Pear- 

 son, on the Influence of Natural History on the religious and moral 

 Character of Man, of which the following is an abstract :— 



After dwelling upon the frame of mind in which the study of 

 Nature should be approached, the lecturer proceeded : " We are 

 apt to speak of religious and moral influences as matters of course — 

 as abstract principles which alone require to be known that they 

 may be appreciated and adopted ; we imagine that they are recom- 

 mended by their own intrinsic weight and character, and that the 

 mind necessarily prostrates itself before their consecrated shrine. 

 Do we not deceive ourselves by the speciousness of this conclusion ? 

 Do we not too often fancy ourselves in possession of the feelino^s 

 without sufficiently estimating the means by which they are to be 

 obtained, and thus appropriate to ourselves a pharisaical conviction 

 which deludes with the form rather than confers the substance ? 

 Do we not too often amuse ourselves with lights and shades under 

 the impression that we grasp the reality ? It is well known to the 

 cultivator of the soil, that he can expect no produce unless he 

 labours with a persevering and untiring hand ; the mechanic, the 

 artist, the man of science, know full well the impossibility of reach- 

 ing excellence without due preparation and study. If thus it is in 

 the ordinary attainment of perfection, mey we not draw the same 

 conclusion in relation to the influences upon the mind ? Let us 

 look to the untutored and unlettered barbarian. We are told that 

 he 



" Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind." 



This appears to rest more in the inspiration of the poet than in the 

 realities of truth. Dependance upon a superior agency is one of the 

 qualities of the human mind ; but, in a state of Nature, how does 

 man display its character ? By falling down before a stock or a 

 stone, a Vishnu or a Juganaut ; thus idolizing the creature of his 

 own invention, and propitiating his imaginary deity as the means 

 of support in the pursuit of his unsubdued and unhallowed passions. 

 * * * If then it shall be admitted that we require every aid and 

 assistance in perfecting the intentions of the Deity, that it is our 

 duty as our interest to prepare by cultivation and by industry for 

 the reception of those truths revealed to man, where shall we find 



