296 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
ran aN 
ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ZOOLOGICAL SCIENCE 
IN BRITAIN, AND ON THE MEANS BEST CALCU- 
LATED FOR ITS ENCOURAGEMENT AND EX- 
TENSION. 
CHAPTER LIL. 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.—SOME ACCOUNT OF THE 
NATURE AND PRESENT STATE OF OUR SCIENTIFIC 
SOCIETIES AND INSTITUTIONS, AND OF THE MEANS 
THEY POSSESS OF ENCOURAGING SCIENCE. — NATIONAL 
ENCOURAGEMENT. 
(205.) THE enquiry we are now to enter upon, 
although to some it may appear irrelevant, is yet 
intimately and vitally connected with the object of 
this volume. We have, in the preceding pages, 
laid before the reader those advantages — chiefly 
intellectual—which might allure him to the study 
of nature. He may, indeed, gather recreation and 
delight in limiting his contemplations to the simple 
objects which a rural walk affords to him. He 
may be content to admire a few detached ornaments | 
of the temple, without desiring to understand the 
extent and harmonious construction of the building 
itself. But, if he desire to quit this humble path 
of enquiry for another more elevated, if he wish 
to generalise his ideas, and compare his observations 
with those of others, he is no longer, as in the former 

