INTRODUCTION. ? 



screw-blades of the ocean steamer leave a longer and more 

 troubled track on the waters. From a Swiss snow-flake 

 to an ocean steamer and all that it carries and implies may 

 seem a long step, and you will say that it is merely a train 

 of association of ideas which leads me from the one to the 

 other. But I believe that this is only another way of 

 stating the fact that so closely interwoven are the strands 

 of causation that a perfect knowledge of the snow-flake's 

 history would involve nothing less than a complete know- 

 ledge of the universe. 



" Flower in the crannied wall, 

 I pluck you out of the crannies ; 

 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 

 Little flower but if I could understand 

 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 

 I should know what God and man is." 



And if you are tempted to go deeper, and, following 

 Tennyson in his poem, to come nearer to the he^rt of 

 things, it is only in and through a study of nature that you 

 can hope to understand what has been done during the 

 last half century in philosophy. Within that time a new 

 philosophy based on a deeper and wider study of nature 

 has arisen, and has deeply influenced all our best thought. 

 Only the student of nature can hope fully to appreciate 

 its teaching. 



O 



Lastly, in the study of nature, you will find, I hope, a 

 deep religious inspiration. On this subject I dare not 

 speak at length, even if I had here the space, lest per- 

 chance I should say too little, or too much. Few, I think, 

 can stand untouched by a deep feeling of reverence in the 

 presence of the wonders and the mysteries that are opened 

 up by the study of nature. And here, perhaps, I may be 

 permitted to reiterate a hope, which I have elsewhere 

 expressed, that with all our advances in science we shall 



