Man in the present day is much superior in 

 intellect and capacity for meeting the reriuire- 

 ments of his a^'e, to the Man of 40 cnnturies ago. 

 I have no wish to depreciate the age I live in, but 

 I think it is a good thing in this the last quarter 

 of the last year of the XlXth century, to look 

 back upon the Men of say 4,000 years ago and 

 their works, an i then try and think how primitive, 

 how insulHeient all our methods will be considered 

 to be by the Man of the year U.OOO a.d. If the 

 contemplation does no more than make us think 

 of ourselves as we may be thought of 4,000 years 

 hencJ, it will do our self-conceit some good. 



We have seen that in many respects Man is not 

 so entirely superior in intelligence, in constructive 

 skill, in power of adapting himself to his sur- 

 roundings. His powers of organization tor the 

 good of the community, and of government of the 

 communitv, are rivalled at least by those of the 

 ant: an individual Man cannot make himself a 

 better house than can many an insect or bitd : his 

 powers of locomotion are distinctly less than those 

 of birds or insects: and as for feeding himself or 

 his ofispring, the jungle fowl or the oyster (who 

 not only support themselves, but bring forth 

 young who cin and do feed ther.'.selves from the 

 day of their birth) leave him far behind. And 

 vet Man has at least one attribute that no other 

 created thing has, and th:it is, his power to control 

 other things. All things were placed under his 

 dominion, an 1 wonderful as the ant may be in his 

 method of government or his social laws, he has no 

 p)wer over any other family or order of living 

 things. Man's place in nature is therefore that of 

 a tribe which can compel many other tribes to do 

 his will, and in that sense he has superior powers, 

 and with the intellectual powers he has received, 

 he can sturly and mak« use of the habits of other 

 created things, or devote to his own use the powers 

 of nature in a way that is impo-sible to the bird, 

 the fish, the insect, or even the rest of the order of 

 Mammalia. While contending that the so-cilled 

 lower creatures are not lower than Man in many 

 respects, I admit that Man is a truly 

 marvellous creature, and that the study of Man 

 is the study of one of the Creator's 

 great works. The Greeks sought to direct the 

 attention of the thoughtful among them, to the 

 study and knowledge of themselves; more recent 

 philosc phers have said the proper study of Man- 

 kind is Man ; but the naturalist, viewing the 

 wonders of Creation, cannot but feel that he is at 

 the same time studying the ineffable Creator, and 

 the result of his investigations and studies must 

 be a strengthening of his belief in, his admiration 

 for. and, let us hcpe, his devotion to the Creator. 



The profession of a naturalist therefore should 

 be considered to be one of the highest, on account 

 ot its tendency to direct the thoughts of the 

 studenttothe wondrous power of hisCreator; audit 

 <:annot be denied that it is a profession that should 

 call out many of the best qualities ; for, to be a 

 successful naturalist, one must learn— 



(1) accuracy in observation 



(2) patience in investigation 



(3) method in operation 



(4) fetseverance in study 

 {5) freedom from bias 



(ti) ability to learn even from opponents 



(7) humility in receiving knowledge 



(8) cautiousness in accepting facts 



(9) power ot comparison and analysis. 



It may ba said that all these qualities are 

 equally required in any profession ; they may be, 

 but we cannot all have professions at all periods of 

 our life ; whereas Nature is ever before all of ue, 

 and the study ot Nature will bring out all these 

 qualities which will then stand us in good stead, 

 whenever we have a profession. 



The study of natural history is in itself a liberal 

 education and is likely to give us valuable help in 

 our daily individual or national life. For the 

 naturalist sees, for instance, in birds a power of 

 motion, a degree of bu jyancy, a method of direct- 

 ing a course, which helps him, or will help him in 

 ph'ysical studies ; he perceives in fish a rapidity of 

 progress through the water, which leads him to 

 consider the shape which he should give to boats 

 that he wishes to drive through the water at great 

 speed : he looks forward to the time when he may 

 be able to understand and perhaps adapt to man- 

 kind, the wonderful unknown power, that enabhs 

 a retriever to find a lost article; thit teaches a 

 vulture to fly straight to the spot where lies a 

 dying donkey ; and copy, if need be, that method 

 whereby in defiance ot the laws of gravity the 

 t.ipmost branches of a WelUngtonia giganteadraw 

 up the mineral fiuid which has been taken from 

 the soil 200 feet below them. 



The astronomer by his studies gets to realize to 

 some extent the immensity of space ; the work of 

 the geologist gives him a clearer perception of 

 time and infinity; and thenaturalistquickly appre- 

 ciates the fact that it is not he alone who is ^-fear- 

 fuUy and wonderfully made," and if his mind is 

 rightly balanced he finds no danger in studying 

 natural history, for there is nothing but good to 

 be got out of a reverent study of God's creation, 

 and it. as I think, such a study tends towards a 

 more humble estimate of ourselves and a corre- 

 sponding appreciation o' the rights of other orders 

 of living creatures ti be lifled out of the category 

 of lower animals. 



Whether the relative position of Man in the 

 scheme of creation is lowtr than we are apt to 

 consider it, or not. we cannot escape from the fact 

 that we are placed in this world tor some purpose, 

 and that we are from lime to time permitted to 

 exercise more and more power over the forces of 

 Nature for our well-being, and as Naturalists we 

 learn year by year that nothing that is created is 

 useless. We may not at present be able to appre- 

 ciate the usefulness ot much that we see, or imder- 

 stand the reason why many things were created, 

 but the study of Natural History tends to impress 

 upon us the lesson that everything has a use, and 

 the hope that in time we may know more than we 

 do now. It teaches us also that we cannot inter- 

 fere with Creation without risk, that is to say that 

 if »o wish to improve our surroundings we must 

 do so by adapting Creation as we find it rather 

 than by seeking to alter creation. If we suddenly 

 denude the hills ot their forests we produce dis- 

 astrous floods; wholesale slaughter of birds is 

 necessarily followed by an alarming increise in 

 insects, which may be more harmful to our 

 interests ; the introduction of animals into a part 

 of the world which was not intended for them, 



