Study of Natural History. 455 



tiie camp and the ocean, the prairie and the forest ; active self- 

 helping life, which can grapple with Nature herself, not merely 

 with printed books about her. Let no one think that this same 

 Natural History is a pursuit fitted only for effeminate or pedantic 

 men. We should say rather that the qualifications required for 

 a perfect naturalist are as- many and as lofty as were required by 

 old chivalrous writers, for the perfect knight-errant of the Middle 

 Ages ; for (to sketch an ideal, of which we are happy to say our 

 race now aftbrds many a fair realization) our perfect naturalist 

 should be strong in body ; able to haul a dredge, climb a rock» 

 turn a boulder, walk all day, uncertain where he shall eat or rest ; 

 ready to face sun and rain, wind and frost, and to eat or drink 

 thankfully anything, however coarse or meagre ; he should know 

 how to swim for his life, to pull an oar, sail a boat, and ride the 

 first horse which comes to hand ; and, finally, he should be a tho- 

 roughly good shot, and a skilful fisherman ; and, if he go far 

 abroad, be able on occasion to fight for his life. 



For his moral character, he must, like a knight of old, be first 

 of all gentle and courteous, ready and able to ingratiate himsel' 

 with the poor, the ignorant, and the savage ; not only because 

 foreign travel will be often otherwise impossible, but because he 

 knows how much invaluable local information can be only obtain- 

 ed from fishermen, miners, hunters, and tillers of the soil. Next 

 he should be brave and enterprising, and withal patient and un- 

 daunted ; not merely in travel, but in investigation ; knowing (as 

 Lord Bacon might have put it) that the kingdom of Nature, like the 

 kingdom of heaven, must not be taken by violence, and that only to 

 those who knock long and earnestly does the great mother open the 

 doors of her sanctuary. He must be of a reverent turn of mind also, 

 not rashly discrediting reports, however vague and fragment- 

 ary ; giving man credit always for some germ of truth, and giving 

 nature credit for an inexhaustible fertility and variety, which will 

 keep him his life long always reverent, yet never superstitious ; 

 wondering at the commonest, but not surprised by the most 

 strano'e ; free from the idols of size and sensuous loveliness ; able 

 to see grandeur in the minutest objects, beauty in the most un~ 

 gainly ; estimating each thing not carnally, as the vulgar do, by 

 its size or its pleasantness to the senses, but spiritually, by the 

 amount of Divine thought revealed to him therein ; holding every 

 phenomenon worth the noting down ; believing that every pebble 

 h-olds a treasure, every bud a revelation ; making it a point of 



