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INTRODUCTION. 



NATURE is the general name for all that exists, so as to be perceptible by the human 

 senses, without being planned by human contrivance, or executed by human labour ; and in 

 this, its general meaning, NATURE stands opposed to ART. But the line of distinction 

 between the two is by no means precise, inasmuch as all the materials of art are natural 

 substances, and all the processes of art are applications of natural principles. 



Hence, although practice may render the hand more dexterous in execution, yet before 

 art can be in the least extended before one addition can be made to the accommodation 

 and comfort of mankind we must go to nature for the materials, and to a knowledge of 

 nature for the method of using them. 



Nature, then, is all to us both for knowing and for doing our life, our means of living, 

 our enjoyment ; and when our knowledge of it becomes so extended as to enable us to see 

 that it is one whole, the countless parts of which work together with incalculably more nicety, 

 than any machine which the most skilful of us can put together, that these parts have 

 within themselves a power of repair and reproduction which we are unable to imitate even 

 in the slightest degree when we carry our contemplation thus far (and if we think for our- 

 selves, the distance is not a long one) the conclusion is irresistibly forced upon us, that 

 subjects so many, so varied, so beautiful, so exquisite in their structures, so perfect in their 

 adaptations principles so simple yet so powerful, operating at all distances, efficient alike 

 upon the atom and upon the mass, now determining the orbits of comets, and the career 

 of planets, through space to which we can assign no bounds ; and again, bringing back the 

 green mould on the bark of the tree, or peopling the waters with myriads of living crea- 

 tures, that this majestic structure must have had a Maker ; and that those laws which 

 congregated worlds obey as easily as the thistle-down yields to the wing of the tempest, 

 must have emanated from One, compared with whom, human strength, and human wisdom, 

 nay, all that is material, must be as nothing. 



It is this vast extension, this endless application of natural history, and its tendency to 

 promote a more perfect knowledge of the works of creation, which raises it so high in the 

 scale of human inquiry and pursuit, and which renders every attempt to impart it in more 

 accessible, more easy, or more persuasive forms, one of the most praiseworthy services that 

 can be rendered. 



No doubt the lessons of nature abound everywhere. They come to us in the beams of 

 the sun, producing days and seasons, clothing the earth with plants, peopling it with ani- 

 mals, and making it gay with flowers, tuneful with songs, lovely to every sense, and abundant 

 to every wish. Those beams command the winds of heaven, sending them to one place 

 witli drought, to another with rain, making the calm to glitter, the breeze to rustle, the 

 NAT. HIST. VOL. I. b 



