PREFACE. 7 



development and meaning of organic forms, and 

 the principles upon which the government of the 

 material universe is carried on. In regard to the 

 spirit and aims of such studies, nothing can be 

 more admirable than the following words of 

 Charles Kingsley on this point, in which he 

 sets forth the qualifications of the observer of 

 Nature : " He should be brave and enterprising, 

 and withal patient and undaunted ; not merely 

 in travel, but in investigation ; knowing (as Lord 

 Bacon might have put it) that the Kingdom of 

 Nature, like the Kingdom of Heaven, must be 

 taken by violence, and that only to those who 

 knock long and earnestly does the great mother 

 open the doors of her sanctuary. He must be 

 of a reverent turn of mind also, not rashly 

 discrediting any reports, however vague and 

 fragmentary, giving man credit always for some 

 germ of worth, and giving Nature credit for an 

 inexhaustible fertility and variety, which will 

 keep him his life long always reverent, yet 

 never superstitious ; wondering at the commonest, 

 but not surprised by the most strange ; free 

 from the idols of size and sensuous loveliness ; 

 able to see grandeur in the minutest objects, 

 beauty in the most ungainly ; estimating each 

 thing, not carnally, as the vulgar do, by its 

 size, or its pleasantness to the senses, but 



