EFFECT OF NATUKE ON THE MIND. 57 



and contemplation of her phenomena, so different from 

 the fleeting fashions and miserable pretexts of much 

 that passes as civilisation, so full of rebukes to our 

 foolish pride and pretences ; so full of lessons to us 

 to be in earnest, and to trust in simple earnestness. 

 But although contact with all reality must necessarily 

 have something of this influence, I should say, speak- 

 ing from my own experience, that this is true in quite 

 another sense to those minds familiarised with the 

 phenomena of life manifested by the simpler organ- 

 isms. Here the Microscope is not the mere extension 

 of a faculty, it is a new sense. At some distance from 

 the Alps, we discern their masses of purple grandeur, 

 but that is all we discern ; on approaching nearer, 

 these purple masses assume shapes more and more 

 definite, although their varied architecture is still hid- 

 den from us : we see none of their ravines and valleys ; 

 a little nearer, and we detect these, but discern none 

 of the chalets nestled in the valley, or scattered over 

 the mountain-sides ; nearer still, we see the habita- 

 tions, and the cattle, and the men ; yet nearer, and 

 we discriminate individualities ; but we have still to 

 advance, and patiently watch, before the tragedies 

 and comedies acted in these scenes can become intel- 

 ligible to us. Thus with each step we have changed 

 our conceptions of the Alps. Thus with each step do 

 we change our conceptions of Nature. We all begin, 

 where most of us end, with seeing things removed 

 from us — kept distant by ignorance and the still more 

 obscuring screen of familiarity. We afterwards learn 



