LESSONS FROM NATURE. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE STARTING-POINT. 



&quot; Our own continued existence is a primary truth naturally made 

 known to us with supreme certainty, and this certainty cannot be 

 denied without involving the destruction of all knowledge whatever.&quot; 



THE philosophic contemplation of nature may be said to 

 be a passion of the age in which we live. Nor is Re a SO ns*hy 

 the reason why, far to seek. Every physical science, p^tioiTof 1 &quot; 

 when once its study is fairly begun, never fails tecomVr* 

 to excite much interest, and in our day a certain pas: 

 knowledge of physical science has become widely diffused. 

 Most popular sciences, zoology, botany, and geology, &c., 

 can be followed \\ith ease by all commonly gifted minds, and 

 the beauty, variety, and inexhaustible multitude of the facts 

 and relations they disclose are such as may well make that 

 interest become intense and absorbing. But when it is re 

 collected that to the attraction these sciences possess in them 

 selves there is now added the interest called forth by the 

 generally diffused belief (whether rightly or wrongly enter 

 tained) that by these much light may be thrown upon the 

 deepest problems and the most important questions which 

 can occupy men s minds, it becomes easy to understand 

 why a very large part of our popular lectures and of our 

 periodical literature should be devoted to subjects of natural 

 history, so treated as to bear, directly or by implication, 



