INTRODUCTION v 



These are reasons which may not appeal to those who pride them- 

 selves on being "thoroughly practical," therefore I shall give last, one which 

 should commend itself to them, and which also has the greatest weight 

 with those who view these things on the highest plane. 



It is always good to follow the truth for its own sake. It is always safe 

 to. do so; it is always wise. However doubtful the path may look at times, 

 it always ends well. Follow the truth and you come to knowledge, and 

 knowledge leads to wisdom. 



In the past generations there have always been a few scholarly "curious" 

 "gentlemen who found pleasure in studying the aspects of nature and 

 in writing down their observations. Of this class were Gilbert White, 

 Catesby, Bartram, Huber, and a thousand such observers. They did not 

 know what they were working for, and their contemporaries considered them 

 at best mere harmless idlers. 



But these men must have felt that they were right. They were blindly 

 following the truth for its own sake. Unwittingly they went on piling up 

 their little ascertained facts or fragments of facts, preparing building 

 material, they knew not for what. But we to-day know that they were 

 storing up bricks and timber for master-builders; they were clearing the 

 way for Darwin and Pasteur and making them possible. 



The edifice to which they were blindly contributing was the splendid 

 structure of Modern Science. And to realize how much that has done to 

 help man toward happiness, we should have to ponder a long list of such 

 modern subjects as: 



Electro-therapeutics and Electro-diagnosis, with a large number of the ap- 

 plications of electric power. 



Medico-botany, with its superb modern pharmacopoeia. 



Micro-zoology, Micro-botany, and Bacteriology, shedding sovereign light 

 on most diseases. 



Phylogeny, Ontogeny, and Embryology, with their obvious practical bear- 

 ing on the welfare of our race. 



Indeed the whole modern science of Sanitation, with all that it means 

 for the reduction of human misery, is nothing but a practical application of 

 the truths of Natural History. 



We must consider all these and realize that each of them was the imme- 

 diate outcome or offspring of a better knowledge of the laws of life, that 

 is "knowledge of himself," obtained by Man through persistent Nature-study. 



All this, it is granted, has been achieved by observation and study of the 

 common things about us. For the future, what further reward is offered ? 

 We do not know. We have no way of guessing. 



