NOTES OF A BOTANIST. 



To the Editors of " The Naturalist." 



The perusal of your prospectus has imparted to me, and I doubt not to 

 many, a pleasurable satisfaction. That individual must, surely, be wilfully blind 

 to what passes around him, who cannot recognize in very much of the boasted 

 science of our times, an unhappy admixture of the leaven of scepticism ; and senti- 

 ments are unblushingly promulgated, which, if extended to their extreme limits, 

 would plunge us headlong into the vortex of unredeeming atheism. With some, 

 indeed, it seems a matter of course to introduce into their communications, how- 

 ever irrelevant, a sneer at revelation, by way of episode. Such cowardly and un- 

 courteous conduct, so far from recommending science and increasing the number of 

 her votaries, makes her features repulsive, and her lineaments unamiable. It is a 

 flagrant breach of the rights and privileges of the commonweal, to convert science 

 into a subtile medium for sapping the foundation of all religion, whether natural 

 or revealed ; because the opinions thus infused happen to be the private senti- 

 ments of the individual whose name they bear, but who may be a stranger to the 

 multifarious arguments by which opposite conclusions may be supported and con- 

 firmed. Far be it from me to fetter or to curb the reins of thought : nay, rather 

 let thought expatiate boundlessly and range fearlessly among her magic creations. 

 I would only stay her flight to forbidden regions, and confine her excursions to 

 their legitimate province. 



The spontaneous origination of matter, innate vitality of atoms, convertibility 

 of plants into animals, and its reverse, with all their numerous offsets and ramifi- 

 cations, are among the hideous scars which mar the beauty of Natural History, in 

 many of the writings of modern times. Vague and unmeaning hypotheses, 

 remarkable only for their reckless folly, cradled among the atheistical notions of 

 continental philosophy, form a chaos of absurdity in which not a few, I fear, of 

 our pseudo-philosophers are now floundering purblind ; and unmitigated by a soli- 

 tary ray of genuine truth, inculcate sentiments and opinions as hostile to induc- 

 tive science, as they are to common sense and sober reason. 



The only maxims that will guide us surely and lead us safely, are those that 

 own a Bacon for their counsellor, and a Newton for their engineer. Under 

 their guidance and direction, the progress of knowledge will be solid and sterling, 

 and her triumphs lasting and brilliant. The path of wisdom will then, indeed, be 

 illuminated by a light from heaven. These are the tests and touchstone of 

 genuine truth, and the only standard of legitimate appeal ; and, while one says, 

 " I am of Lamarck," and another, " I of Latreille or St. Hillaire," be it mine, 



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