Geology 



many other methods of enjoyment and recreation are 

 without their direct utility. 



The reading of well-chosen fiction, it is true, tends to 

 widen the views, but after all it is but the opinions of 

 men and women, based in some few instances on actual 

 experiences. It deals principally with the actions and 

 thoughts of men and women as they are affected by the 

 emotions such as religion and love, or with questions 

 of ethics, sociology, or politics. 



By confining ourselves to this type of literature we 

 are apt to become narrow in our views and to depend 

 upon others for our opinions of this and that, and only 

 too often we confine our reading to a favourite group of 

 authors, and thus do not even get a very great variety 

 of opinions. 



Many of our social customs and some of our beliefs 

 have arisen as the direct results of the natural forces 

 working around us, and these are the customs and beliefs 

 which will stay with us from generation to generation. 

 Others which have been raised, it may be to meet and 

 attempt to overcome some past or present difficulty or 

 social evil, will, in so far as they are contrary to the 

 great fundamental processes of Nature, inevitably perish. 

 It is then desirable that we should all have some know- 

 ledge of the forces about us, that we may be able to 

 form conceptions of our own, and not be obliged to follow 

 like a flock of sheep the bell-wether of other people's 

 opinions. 



We speak of the fundamental processes of Nature 

 and of natural laws, but how few of us really trouble 

 ourselves about them. We all agree that it is for the 

 good of the human race that we should possess some 



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