122 CONCHOLOGIST’S COMPANION. 
foregoing are merely noticed in reference to your 
observation, ‘‘that the science of Conchology led, 
in your opinion, to no beneficial result.” 
‘¢ Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.” 
To know little of a science, is frequently to dis- 
esteem it; to know much, is to yield it a just tribute 
of admiration. ‘The cultivation of a fine taste for 
the beautiful works of nature,’ as Dugald Stewart 
justly observes, in reference to a taste for general 
literature, ‘‘ not only enables us to enjoy more fully 
those primary pleasures which are afforded by an 
appropriate object; but superadds to these a second- 
ary pleasure, peculiar to itself, and of no inconsider- 
able value. The secondary pleasures connected with 
the study of natural history, in even its minuter 
divisions, may be readily explained. They tend to 
excite a predilection for intellectual pursuits, in 
preference to such as are frivolous and unsatisfatory ; 
and to quicken that general admiration of the wonders 
of creation, which the Deity has wisely implanted in 
the mind of man. The primary are of a higher 
character. They are derived from a due consider- 
ation of the works of nature in connexion with their 
Divine artificer, and the feelings associated with them 
are those of adoration and delight. They are such 
as were experienced by the royal prophet, when he 
