Vii 
the pursuits of a Club of Naturalists. Gentlemen, I stood aghast. 
I did not think that there had been one of our members so igno- 
rant of the principles of a Natwralist’s Club as not to recognize 
the fact that even all art is only founded on nature—that nature 
must be the base of operations in art—and that, therefore, the 
studies of a naturalist comprehend all possible studies. 
On this view, forgive me if I touch for a few minutes on those 
studies which have of late called my attention from the pursuits 
which more commonly bear the name of nature, but which I find 
so cognate that I constantly trace how the thoughts on the one 
subject have fitted me for action on the other. 
You, gentlemen, know the work on which I have been engaged, 
and which I have closely watched for some years. I will not 
attempt to give you an account of the spread of Reformatory 
Schools throughout England, (still less of their immediately ex- 
pected rise in Ireland, Scotland, and Jamaica,) but I will simply 
state, as a matter, hard indeed to be believed without examination, 
but of which the hope appears more strong the closer we search 
into it, that—so fast and so surely is Juvenile Crime decreasing, 
in all places where the Reformatory System, as it is usually called, 
has a fair trial, I have great hope and trust that by Christmas, 
1859, all, even the large cities of England, with the exception only 
of London, will be cleared of all regular habitual premeditating 
thieves under sixteen years of age ; and if this be the case, I have 
no doubt that three years more will clear London. I grant that 
this appears so wild a hope as to be classed with impossibilities. 
What of that? Is it more impossible than the electric telegraph 
was pwentty years ago? or than railroads were thirty-five years 
since f 
No, my friends—when we have completed our studies, when we 
have worked out all the laws of nature, and can put definite 
bounds to them all—then may we be justified in saying that a 
thing is impossible—but, at present, so far is this from being the 
case, that the greatest glory and charm of our studies of nature 
consist in the fact that, deeply as we may search, and far as we 
may see, any increase of our knowledge only enables us to see 
more clearly the existence of farther fields beyond us, and thus 
proves the eternal truth of our studies, by shewing that they are 
blended with the Infinite. . 
