THE STUDY OF NATURE. 27 



properties and uses of bodies were too much neglect- 

 ed ; but now the most modestly disposed will meet 

 no offence, the most sceptical will be convinced of 

 the utihty of the study, and every one will perceive 

 with satisfaction that the knowledge acquired has 

 directly or indirectly benefitted himself and the 

 world ; that multitudes of natural bodies have uses 

 and qualities of the highest interest, and that the 

 prospects and expectations of science should be 

 hailed as the earnests of universal happiness. Let 

 no man be thought mad or void of proper feeling 

 because he occupies himself in studying abstruse 

 parts of nature, because he investigates the forms and 

 habits of minute animals, and ponders over phe- 

 nomena, the nature and uses of which have not yet 

 been determined ; be it remembered, that these 

 things may contribute hereafter to our wants or 

 pleasures, and that he is actuated by the desire to 

 establish the connections and differences between 

 these things and others ; the knowledge of the uses 

 of certain highly endowed and highly finished organs 

 in the lower animals, induces a knowledge of the 

 functions of the same organs, less developed, in the 

 human frame; this latter knowledge again, points 

 out the kind of remedy likely to remove disease in 

 them, and the direction which it should take to be 

 efficient. Are not many improvements in medicine 

 derived from dissections of the different nerves in 

 their highest states of developement in the lower 

 animals? and have not the lives of men been pro- 

 tracted by suroical operations, which could not have 

 been attempted but for experiments effected on the 

 brute creation ? Upon the same principle of deduc- 

 tion, does the inspection of minute and neglected 

 bodies lead to a knowledge of others, and to con- 

 clusions sometimes the most fortunate and important. 

 Nor are these occupations, on obscure and minute 

 bodies, without their influence on the mind : e([ually 

 with him who studies the structure and qualities of 

 the most palpable of nature's works, the man thus 



