376 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
be inseparably connected, in every system of edu- 
cation, with the study of spiritual truths. Natural 
history is the most appropriate handmaiden revealed 
religion can receive; she is always at our side, 
ready to point out in every plant that grows and in 
every creature that breathes, the verity of those 
things which are unseen ; things which the youthful 
mind, however unaccustomed to reflect, is neverthe- 
less instructed to believe in. But there is danger, it 
may be said, in two ways, in thus making zoological 
science one of the essentials of an academic edu- 
cation. Firstly, that as the science in its present 
state exhibits none of those philosophic generali- 
sations and definite laws to be found in the astronomic 
world, the mind may become too much attached 
to its minute details, to dwell upon the lessons or 
inferences they should teach ; and secondly, that as 
natural history is rather a contemplative study, its 
acquirement would involve more time than can be 
spared from studies more immediately bearing on 
the active duties of life. Both these objections, 
more especially the latter, appear good, and there- 
fore deserve our serious attention. 
(258.) No fact can speak more plainly of the 
consequences resulting from the disregard of zoolo- 
gical science in Britain, than that it is the only one 
in which (until very recently) no general laws had 
been discovered. Other branches of physical sci- 
ence have had their Keplers, their Newtons, and 
their Davys, who have each, by slow but unwearied 
inductions, reduced a multiplicity of appearances to 
a few lofty generalisations, under which an innumer- 
able diversity of facts, formerly isolated and appa- 
