296 HOW TO STUDY NATURAL HISTORY. [xn. 



See this pebble which I hold in my hand, picked up 

 out of the street as I came along ; it shall be my only 

 object to-night. There the thing is ; and is as it is, 

 and in no other way; and such it will be, and so it 

 will behave and act, in spite of me, and all my fancies 

 about it, and notions of what it ought to have been 

 like, and what it ought to have done. It is a thought 

 of God's ; and strong by the eternal laws of matter, 

 which are the will of God. It has the whole universe, 

 sun, and stars, and all, backing it by God's appoint- 

 ment, to keep it where it is and what it is ; and till (as 

 Lord Bacon has it) I have discovered and obeyed the 

 will of God revealed in that pebble, it is to me a riddle 

 more insoluble than the Sphinx's, a fortress more im- 

 pregnable than Sevastopol. I may crush it : but 

 destroying is not conquering : but I cannot even mend 

 the road with it prudently, until I have discovered 

 whether Almighty God has made it fit to mend roads 

 with. I may have the genius of a Plato or of a Shake- 

 speare, but all my genius will not avail to penetrate 

 that pebble, or see anything in it but a little round 

 dirty stone, until I have treated the pebble with 

 reverence, as a thing independent of my likes and dis- 

 likes, fancies, and aspirations; and have asked .it 

 humbly to tell me its story, taking counsel meanwhile 

 of hundreds of kindred pebbles, each as silent and re- 

 served as this one ; and watched and listened patiently, 

 through many mistakes and misreadings, to what it has 

 to say for itself, and what God has made it to be. And 

 then at last that little black rounded pebble, from the 

 street outside, may, and will surely, if I be patient and 

 honest enough, tell me a tale wilder and grander than 

 any which I could have dreamed for myself; will 



