12 



WHAT THESE LOCAL SOCIETIES MAY DO. 



I wish to speak temperately upon this point, because I know enough 

 of exact science, and of the labour which exact science requires, to make 

 me fully appreciate the modest limits within which any scientific efforts of 

 an amateur must of necessity be confined. Nevertheless, most men may 

 be taught habits of observation ; they may be instructed what to observe, 

 and how to observe it ; and I should imagine that (to take the lowest view) 

 the man who has cultivated habits of observation will prove in almost all 

 the practical employments of life more handy and more useful than the 

 man who has not cultivated such habits. Men differ very much in their 

 natural endowments as regards this matter. Some men, like myself, are 

 unfortunately short-sighted, and are almost incapable of observing anything ; 

 and some men are incapable of caring about the things to be obser- 

 ved. I remember hearing two men discussing the geological 

 formation of a country through which they had both travelled, 

 when a third, interposing, sagaciously asked, " If the roads be good, what 

 possible difference can it make what there is lying underneath them ?' 

 But the large majority of mankind are observing animals, and though the 

 science of observation and classification be not very high in the scale, it 

 is, for the majority of men, the most accessible, and it is the liasis of 

 much that is very useful. Let me add that if one country be more 

 favourable than another for calling out the power uf observation, few can 

 be better for the purpose than this county of Cumberland. Moreover, 

 a good deal of useful practical work may be done in the way of ex- 

 cursions. I perceive from your programme that it is intended to do some- 

 thing of the kind this afternoon. And with reference to this question I 

 should like to record the pleasure which I once enjoyed in being per- 

 mitted to spend a day in an excursion with the members of a society, 

 more or less resembling those with Avhich we are concerned to-day. The 

 plan was this : we met at a cei-taia railway cutting, where a geological 

 member explained to us the section of strata which the railway operations 

 had brought to light, and gave us a short lecture on the geology of the 

 neighbourhood. Then we visited some local antiquities, which were ex- 

 plained by an antiquarian, who told us something of the history of the 



