64 NATURE SUPERIOR TO ART. 



tion," in pur thinking, we would have the consolation 

 of knowing that we were in every instance " think- 

 ing rightly and to some purpose," that every thought 

 would " tell" practically ; and that alone would give us 

 both collectedness and pleasure. As we would then 

 never attempt any thing but what we felt confident 

 we could do, we would always have the exultation 

 of success to cheer us on. 



Now, it is only in the observation of nature that 

 we can get that ready-mindedness which cheers us 

 on with the confidence that we are always thinking 

 aright and to good purpose. Our business, if we 

 are to conduct it in the most successful and proper 

 manner, must not be half so wide in its range as a 

 mind of even any ordinary capacity will wander ; 

 and as for the productions of art, though many of 

 them are curious, and far from unworthy of our at- 

 tention, in order that from them we may " learn to 

 excel," they are at best but second-hand applica- 

 tions of those properties and principles which we 

 find original and fresh when we turn to nature itself. 

 The very depth of human knowledge, and the very 

 height and perfection of human art, are, in truth, 

 nothing more than the revealing and applying of a 

 few of the laws and principles of nature ; and though 

 we often flatter ourselves that there is something 

 profound in what we know, and mighty in what we 

 do, it is still all in nature ; and what we call in- 

 ventions, even clever ones, are only the applications 

 of discoveries ; and of discoveries which lie as much 

 in the way of one man as another, if both are equally 

 diligent in search of them. 



It is matter of common remark, that many of the 

 most valuable discoveries, or applications of discov- 

 eries (call them inventions, if you will), have been 

 made as it were by accident, by persons not having 

 many of the ordinary pretensions to knowledge, or 

 not being those to whom we would have looked for 

 such discoveries or inventions. The mariner's 



