INTRODUCTION. 
15 
attach themselves to floating pieces of timber, and in the crabs, 
lobsters, and shrimps of our shores. The very best accounts 
we have, of the structure, habits, and economy of the lower 
tribes of animals, have been furnished to us by individuals 
who did not think it beneath them to devote many years 'to 
the study of a single species; and as there are very few 
which have been thus fully investigated, there is ample 
opportunity for every one to suit his own taste in the choice 
of an object. 
And none but those who have tried the experiment, can 
form an estimate of the pleasure which the study of Eature 
is capable of affording to its votaries. There is a simple 
pleasure in the acquisition of knowledge, worth to many far 
more than the acquisition of wealth. There is a pleasure in 
looking in upon its growing stores, and watching the expan¬ 
sion of the mind which embraces it, far above that which the 
miser feels in the grovelling contemplation of his hard-sought 
pelf. There is a pleasure in making it useful to others, com¬ 
parable at least to that which the man of generous benevo¬ 
lence feels in ministering to their relief with his purse or his 
sympathy. There is a pleasure in the contemplation of beauty 
and harmony, wherever presented to us. And are not all 
these pleasures increased, when we are made aware,—as in the 
study of Eature we soon become,—that the sources of them 
are never-ending, and that our enjoyment of them becomes 
more intense in proportion to the comprehensiveness of our 
knowledge ? And does not the feeling that we are not look¬ 
ing upon the inventions or contrivances of a skilful human 
artificer, but studying the wonders of a Creative Design 
infinitely more skilful, immeasurably heighten all these 
sources of gratification? If it is not every one who can 
feel all these motives, cannot every one feel the force of 
some ? 
‘There is certainly no science which more constantly and 
forcibly brings before the mind the power, the wisdom, and 
the goodness of the Creator. Tor whilst the Astronomer has 
to seek for the proofs of these attributes in the motions and 
adjustments of a universe, whose nearest member is at a 
distance which imagination can scarcely realize, the Physio¬ 
logist finds them in the meanest worm that we tread beneath 
our feet, or in the humblest zoophyte dashed by the waves 
