50 6 THE GREAT BOOK OF NATURE. 



workings of human agency are merely ephemeral, 

 and make no organic change in any of the conditions 

 natural to a country that will continue permanent 

 where they have ceased to operate. See how much 

 the agricultural land of England has reverted towards 

 its original condition the moment that the farming 

 industry failed through temporary stress of the times: 

 so that it is calculated that it will take years to 

 restore it to the condition in which it was before 

 the depression began to operate. 



These things show that Nature still holds on 

 the even tenor of her way, altogether uninfluenced, 

 except for the moment, by anything that human labour 

 may effect. No! if we wish to understand Nature we 

 must study her in her wild, and not merely in her 

 civilized, or in other words in her artificial state. But 

 in saying so we in no way desire to cast a reflection 

 upon the enormous value of the study of the modifi- 

 cations which human skill and culture may introduce 

 into the natural products of a country. He that causes 

 two blades of grass to grow where but one grew 

 before, still remains a benefactor of the human race. 

 That however does not affect the gist of our argument 

 that the Book of Nature deserves also to be studied 

 in its orginal, as well as in its transformed condition. 



Now the great book of Nature is open to all. Through 

 its medium, as we humbly venture to believe, the Great 

 Creator may be regarded as continually speaking to 

 mankind. Even as a mother holds up a picture-book 

 before her child, so this great book is freely displayed 

 by our bountiful mother, Nature, without reservation 

 and without price, to all who desire to profit by it, 

 in order to explain and to instruct, so that it thus 



