1 64 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [September, 



paths of science would find it a long 

 job. 



If you would learn the argu- 

 ments on the other side, ask of 

 those who repudiate playing at 

 science. 



Perhaps you will learn that it spoils 

 a man for business ; that he will be 

 thinking of tadpoles when he should 

 be striking a balance ; that he becomes 

 effeminate over books and cock- 

 chafers ; that energies are wasted in 

 play that are wanted for work ; that 

 it is enough to fight a hard battle all 

 day. But these are only bogies to 

 frighten fools. Those who have 

 tried " recreative science " know well 

 enough that it is recreative, and that 

 it bears no invidious relationship to 

 the occupations of life. 



Perhaps you may be told that it 

 makes men sullen and morose, silent 

 and reserved, cadaverous and miser- 

 able. Let no one suppose that we 

 claim to be other than human. We 

 have also our pleasures as well as 

 other men, but not the same pleas-" 

 ures ; the difference is qualitative, 

 not quantitative. Our enjoyment is 

 not the less keen because it is less 

 boisterous. We have no need to pray 

 that " the evening's amusement may 

 bear the morning's reflection." That 

 is a prayer we will leave for those 

 whose necessities require it. 



Perhaps you may be told that it is 

 useless and unproductive, waste of 

 time, waste of power. Mercenary 

 motives are the last impulses, and the 

 very last that influence even the natu- 

 ralist. That, at least, it is equal in 

 usefulness, in productiveness, to the 

 thousand and one devices employed 

 for killing time can be demonstrated ; 

 that it is superior may be inferred, as 

 the opinion of some who have applied 

 the test of experience. 



Perhaps it is not needful to battle 

 with such images of clay. Let us 

 rather enquire what is the ideal to 

 which a student should aspire. 



This work has been done, and well 

 done. Why need we to do it again ? 

 Turn to the early pages of Charles 



Kingsley's " Glaucus," and there con' 

 template his fuUdength portrait of an 

 ideal naturalist. I would not attempt 

 to improve it. The lines are drawn 

 by a master's hand, and one who had 

 deep sympathy with his subject, " I 

 should say," he wrote, "that the quali- 

 fications required for a perfect natu- 

 ralist are as many and as lofty as 

 were required by the old chivalrous 

 writers for the perfect knights-errant 

 of the Middle Ages," Then he com- 

 mences with the physical requisites of 

 a good naturalist. Li a few lines the 

 outline is drawn. Then he adds, 

 "for his moral character he must, like 

 a knight of old, be first of all gentle 

 and courteous, ready and able to in- 

 gratiate himself with the poor, the 

 ignorant, and the savage. Next he 

 should be brave and enterprising, and 

 withal patient and undaunted, know- 

 ing that the kingdom of Nature, like 

 the Kingdom of Heaven, must be 

 taken by violence ; and that only to 

 those who knock long and earnestly 

 does the great mother open the doors 

 of her sanctuary. He must be of a 

 reverend turn of mind also ; not 

 rashly discrediting any reports, how- 

 ever vague and fragmentary, giving 

 man credit always for some geim of 

 truth, and giving nature credit for an 

 inexhaustible fertility and variety, 

 which will keep him his life long 

 always reverent, yet never supersti- 

 tious, wondering at the commonest, 

 but not surprised by the most strange ; 

 free from the idols of size and sen- 

 suous loveliness ; able to see gran- 

 deur in the minutest objects, beauty 

 in the most ungainly; estimating each 

 thing not carnally, as the vulgar do, 

 by its size, or its pleasantness to the 

 senses, but spiritually, by the amount 

 of Divine thought revealed to him 

 therein ; holding every phenomenon 

 worth the noting down; believing that 

 every pebble holds a treasure, every 

 bud a revelation ; making it a point 

 of conscience to pass over nothing 

 through laziness or hastiness, lest the 

 vision once offered and despised 

 should be withdrawn, and looking at 



