STUDY OF NATURE. 

 No. I. 



Reciprocal influence of the Natural Sciences. 

 By Robert Mudie. 



Though, in the professional part of Natural History, it is necessary, for the ad- 

 vancement of the science, that there should be a division of labour, something ana- 

 logous to that which exists among the professors of the arts, whether inventive 

 or handicraft; and though in the one, the other, and every department of each, this 

 division of labour, whether more of the head or of the hand, is the only means by 

 which truth in principle, and dexterity in practice, can be arrived at ; yet, in that 

 study and knowledge of the productions of Nature, which forms so essential and 

 so valuable a part of general education, the mode of procedure should be very dif- 

 ferent. In this, the great danger, and it is great in proportion to the talent and zeal of 

 the party, is, that some single department shall entice the mind away from that gene- 

 ral attention to the whole, which is requisite not only to the pleasure and profit of 

 a well-cultivated mind, in the business and enjoyment of life, and the furtherance 

 of the general weal of society, but also to the proper understanding and successful 

 pursuit of the one branch, although that branch is ultimately to be studied profes- 

 sionally. Thus, even he who is ultimately to be an artist in the investigation of 

 Nature, must at first be a general student, in the same manner as he who 

 wants to be successful in any pursuit of life must first be a general scholar, or re- 

 ceive a good education, in order to enable him to grapple with any difficulty that 

 may arise. 



It is true that there stand upon the record, among those who have shone the 

 brightest in most departments of human knowledge, and in every branch of human 

 pursuit, many who appear to have stormed the citadel of knowledge and the tem- 

 ple of art, without apparent previous education, and with the strength of their own 

 minds alone. But granting — which not one of themselves would have granted — 

 that such individuals possessed this innate or instinctive method of arriving at the 

 high places of the intellectual world, others must not deceive themselves by such 

 examples. This original genius, even were it as real as it is imaginary, is but as 

 the one great prize in a lottery of ten thousand blanks ; and thus, though many 

 might expect it, only one could get it, and all the rest would be losers. But in truth 

 there is no such original genius. Every step that any human being can take in 

 knowledge, must be a step in reasoning ; and if the foot is but once let fall any- 

 where else than on the firm ground of well-sifted and thoroughly-established expe- 

 rience, down he goes in the quagmire of error and absurdity ; and the labour 



