ADVANTAGES OF STUDYING FROM THE LIFE. 39 



upon the natural world only to find therein the names and 

 the characters of their systems. If they are botanists, they 

 are satisfied to have discovered a plant of which some author 

 has spoken, and having assigned it to the class and the order 

 which he has pointed out, they gather it, and spreading it 

 between two bits of grey paper, they sit down content with 

 their knowledge and their researches. They do not form a 

 herbal to study nature, but they study nature to form a 

 herbal. It is in the same way that they make collections of 

 animals, that they may learn their genera and species, and 

 treasure up their names. But can he be a lover of nature 

 who thus studies her wonderful works ? How great a differ- 

 ence is there between a dead vegetable, dry, faded, dis- 

 coloured, whose stems and leaves and flowers are crumbling 

 to powder, and a living vegetable, full of sap, which buds, 

 flowers, gives forth perfume, fructifies, and sows itself again 

 maintains an universal harmony with the elements, with in- 

 sects, with birds, with quadrupeds, and, combining with a 

 thousand other vegetables, crowns our hills and adorns our 

 banks. The animal loses by death even more of its charac- 

 teristics than the vegetable, for the animal has received a 

 more vigorous portion of life. Its principal qualities vanish, 

 its eyes are shut, its pupils are dim, its limbs are stiff, it is 

 without warmth, without motion, without feeling, without 

 voice, without instinct. What a difference between the ani- 

 mal which enjoys the light, distinguishes objects, moves to- 

 wards them, calls the female, couples, makes its nest or lair, 

 brings up its young, defends them from their enemies, con- 

 gregates with its kind, and gives music to our woods, and 

 animation to our meadows." 



But the out-door observation of these and such-like sub- 

 jects by the real lover of nature and no one merits this 

 name who does not bestow attention of this kind upon the 

 objects of his research, leads to far higher considerations and 



