PBEFACE. 7 



Another argument, and a very strong one, in favour 

 of studying some branch of Natural Science just now 

 is this-^that without it you can hardly keep pace with 

 the thought of the world around you. 



Over and above the solid gain of a scientific habit 

 of mind, of which I shall speak presently, the gain of 

 mere facts, the increased knowledge of this planet on 

 which we live, is very valuable just now; valuable 

 certainly to all who do not wish their children and 

 their younger brothers to know more about the 

 universe than they do. 



Natural Science is now occupying a more and more 

 important place in education. Oxford, Cambridge, the 

 London University, the public schools, one after another, 

 are taking up the subject in earnest; so are the middle- 

 class schools; so I trust will all primary schools through- 

 out the country; and I hope that my children, at least, if 

 not I myself, will see the day, when ignorance of the 

 primary laws and facts of science will be looked on as 

 a defect, only second to ignorance of the primary laws 

 of religion and morality. 



I speak strongly, but deliberately. It does seem to 

 me strange, to use the mildest word, that people whose 

 destiny it is to live, even for a few short years, on this 

 planet which we call the earth, and who do not at all 

 intend to live on it as hermits, shutting themselves up 

 in cells, and looking on death as an escape and a 

 deliverance, but intend to live as comfortably and 

 wholesomely as they can, they and their children after 

 them it seems strange, I say, that such people should 

 in general be so careless about the constitution of this 

 same planet, and of the laws and facts on which depend, 



