108 INFORMATION EVERYWHERE. 



greatest importance and value, which used on former 

 occasions to be despised. Therefore, as we must 

 .beware of neglecting small things, so also we must 

 not refrain from observing and examining any thing, 

 though that thing may be neglected or despised, or 

 even derided; for a thing which is any or all of 

 these may contain the substance of the most valu- 

 able discovery that it is possible for us to make. 

 There is no substance and no event independent and 

 of itself alone. They belong to the great family of 

 nature and the vast succession of appearances ; and, 

 whatever their aspects may be to our mere gaze, 

 they may have a long tale to tell of the past, and a 

 most important revelation to make of the future. 

 To the unreflecting observer, the chalky cliffs of 

 Kent, with their dispersed nodules of flint, may 

 seem very dull and senseless instructers; and yet 

 those beds of chalk have once been sea-shells, and 

 those flints have once been sponges ; so that the 

 two together tell us that those very cliffs, which 

 now stand beetling over the ocean, must at some 

 period or other have been far below its surface. 

 Indeed, there is not a substance with which we 

 meet, or an appearance that can strike any of the 

 senses, but which, if we will hear it, has got an 

 interesting story; and whether we visit places 

 thickly tenanted with animals, places thickly planted 

 with vegetables, the barren wilds, the ocean shores, 

 the wide expanse of its waters, or the wastes of 

 drifting sand, nay, even if we could mount up from 

 the earth altogether, and visit the region of clouds, 

 we should find enough to exercise all our observa- 

 tion, occupy all our thoughts, and gratify and delight 

 us Jo the full measure of our capacity for enjoyment. 

 We speak of the waste and the wilderness ; but, in 

 truth, there are none such in nature : the only deserts 

 in creation are human senses which do not observe, 

 and a human mind which cannot compare and think. 

 Thus, if w.e- complain that we are deserted and soli- 



