INTRODUCTION. XXI 



has since changed the whole science of mineralogy, it is not necessary, 

 here, to give the inferior details. 



Such is the "field of realities," as M. Lamarck terms it, which the 

 study of Nature offers to the intelligent mind. Life, in all its aspects, 

 is exhibited in countless forms, and the regular succession of organized 

 beings, present the creation in the attractive features of perennial 

 youth. Without herbivorous races, the vegetable kingdom would 

 soon encumber the surface of the globe ; without carnivorous animals, 

 the others would multiply beyond their means of support ; and provi- 

 sion is made in those tribes, whose food is decomposing substances, to 

 free the earth from dead animal remains. By no conceivable means, 

 could the same amount of existence and happiness be attained > and 

 the whole system is so wonderfully arranged, that among the number- 

 less existences which people the earth, the air, and the waters, there 

 is a constant harmony between the means of existence and the existing 

 beings. While animals, useful to others, are produced in amazing 

 numbers, the fecundity of others, whose physical powers might other- 

 wise give them a superiority, are limited, and species apparently the 

 most defenceless, are provided with means of protection, which insure 

 their perpetuity. To Man alone, as the intelligent head of the whole, 

 is given the dominion over the inferior creatures ; his reason has 

 enabled him to apply to his use the whole of the organized and 

 inorganic bodies around him, and left him, within certain limits, the 

 accountable Master of the creation. 



On the utility of a knowledge of the objects of Nature, to a being 

 depending on her productions for the supply of all his conveniences 

 and wants, it is scarcely necessary to insist. No species of human 

 learning is so well calculated to form habits of attention and correct 

 observation, as the study of the different branches of Natural History ; 

 and none is more admirably adapted to the feelings and capacities 

 of the young. Besides the improvement of the intellectual powers, 

 which the examination of the structure and habits of any class of 

 organized beings is calculated to produce, and the associations likely 

 to be thereby awakened, there is something in the study of Nature 

 which approaches to philosophy of a higher kind — something that, 

 while it teaches man his place in this Creation of Wonders, infallibly 

 leads him to admire the wisdom, and power, and goodness, displayed 

 by its Great Author. 



