296 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



PART IV. 



ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ZOOLOGICAL SCIENCE 

 IN BRITAIN, AND ON THE MEANS BEST CALCU- 

 LATED FOR ITS ENCOURAGEMENT AND EX- 

 TENSION. 



CHAPTER I. 



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 



