xviu INTRODUCTION. 



It is not the labours of the learned that are to be brought to 

 the attention of infancy, but a study of nature, to comprehend 

 which requires scarcely anything but eyes, and which consists in 

 examining carefully the objects of nature, in order to admire their 

 beauties, without diving into their hidden causes. Children are 

 capable of this study, for they have eyes, and they have curiosity ; 

 they desire to know, and they are inquiring. A garden, a field, a 

 palace, all is an open book for them ; and they should be taught 

 to read in it. " It is inconceivable/' says Rollin, " how much 

 children might Learn if we could profit by the opportunities which 

 they themselves afford us." To seize upon these opportunities 

 should be a desideratum with instructors and parents. 



Frivolous pretexts have for a long* time been urged against 

 teaching Natural History, and even when the description of a 

 few plants and insects was permitted, the book was hastily closed 

 before the reader arrived at the study of man, without dreaming 

 that this study, which Galen pronounced a hymn to divinity, takes 

 its place amongst those branches of knowledge most worthy of 

 his genius. 



By examining the material springs of his being, man accustoms 

 himself to raise his thoughts to their author and preserver; the 

 more he considers their wonderful organization, the more he feels 

 the necessity of seeking beyond himself for the Supreme Cause ; 

 it is at this moment he feels the insufficiency of his own limited 

 explanations to deceive the human mind into a gross materialism, 

 and that he feels assured that this machine, which goes of itself, is 

 regulated by a wisdom superior to his own. Constrained then to 

 seek a motive beyond the circle of physical causes, his enlightened 

 reason reveals to him the immaterial agent who binds all things, 

 and directs them by rules, and to the end, which he judges to be 

 proper. 



, These ideas, however reasonable they may appear, were in no- 

 wise admissible only a few years ago ; the fear of weakening reli- 

 gious sentiment was the motive for banishing Natural History 

 from the schools; and nothing less than the imposing authority 

 of the great naturalist, whose grievous loss the Sciences will for 

 a long time deplore, nothing less than the constancy of his efforts 



