THE USES OF SEA-WEEDS. 83 



all and much more of the same nature addressed to the 

 Parisians of the reign of Louis the fifteenth, passed, I 

 doubt not, wonderfully well, but it will not do now, when 

 almost every young girl in town and country is a botanist, 

 and works on the Algae have become popular/' 



I cannot close these introductory chapters more appro- 

 priately than in the eloquent words of Professor Harvey, of 

 Dublin. " If Naturalists too often neglect the true use of 

 this knowledge, and rest satisfied with the knowledge itself, 

 the fault and the loss is their own, and must not be charged 

 to science. It is enough for her if she but farnish food 

 which is capable of nourishing the well-directed heart ; it 

 is not her province either to cleanse that heart, or to give it 

 power of digestion. For this she must refer her votary to a 

 higher and holier voice ; and if she ever speak of looking 

 'through nature up to nature^s God/ she does so with a 

 humble deference to her elder sister, whose province it is 

 to lead the heart to that contemplation. Science and 

 Religion must not be confounded : each has her several 

 path, distinct but not hostile; each^in her way is friend!) 

 to man ; and where both unite they will ever be found to 

 be his best protectors : — the one a ' light to his eyes,' 

 opening to him the mysteries of the material universe; — the 



