104 OSCILLATIONS OB VIBRATIONS 



tree organized with reference to the earth and atmosphere! 

 The fibres on the roots and the leaves on the branches how 

 different in form and color ! Yet both are absorbents, beauti- 

 fully adapted to the media in which they develop. In like 

 manner is the organization of man adapted to the material 

 creation spread around. He is so organized that the beauty 

 and grandeur of Nature contribute to his enjoyment. This 

 world on which he lives was made for him. It is his domain. 

 Is he not then far superior to this world? His eye is beauti- 

 fully adapted to receive the light, his ear is formed for the 

 reception of sound; his body, in fact, is an apparatus most 

 exquisitely contrived to render him sensible to the nature of 

 external things. Hence, Nature is the great teacher. In 

 childhood we are the most passive and impressible. "We spend 

 life in a state of constant and curious excitement. We are 

 perpetually stimulated by the presence of new objects, and 

 every hour brings with it stores of facts and natural appear- 

 ances, the rich materials of our future knowledge. Nature is 

 pouring in instruction at every avenue of sense. As we 

 advance in years, we become familiar with common objects, 

 and our attention is naturally drawn away from the dis- 

 covery of what is new to the study and examination of that 

 which is old. The vast variety of phenomena which have 

 made an impression on us are brought under review, and the 

 feverish astonishment of childhood gives place to the calm of 

 manly contemplation. Then commence those first attempts at 

 generalization which mark the dawn of science in the mind, 

 and from the lessons of the past we now draw the materials of 

 our future wisdom. 



Every wind and rain-drop has helped to mould the character 

 of this tree. And it is a great truth, which well deserves to be 

 regarded, that not only the peculiarities of their organization, 

 but the circumstances by which they are surrounded, form 

 those endlessly diversified varieties of human character which 

 we meet with in our passage through life. Like the different 

 trees of a forest, the individuality of men is the result of the 

 controling influence of peculiar laws of organization and the 

 circumstances in which they are placed. 



