ON HABITS OF OBSERVING. 19 



world like a heedless traveller, without making any 

 reflections or observations, without any design or 

 purpose beseeming a man."* There are some who 

 are not tied down by their circumstances to any par- 

 ticular employment, and who are content to do no- 

 thing. They either let their faculties rust in idle- 

 ness, or direct them to objects unworthy of rational 

 beings. Might not, we repeat, such individuals fill 

 up their time more profitably, and in a way more 

 calculated to advance their own happiness, by applying 

 their minds to the great Book of Nature, always 

 open to them, but hitherto unread ? Is it not to be 

 regretted that they can find even no amusement in the 

 exercise of their senses, in discerning and noting down 

 what there is of marvellous and instructive in the 

 works of the Creation ? The very variety that exists in 

 Nature, the endless diversity of plan, the marks of skill 

 and adaptation that everywhere meet us, seem almost 

 to put forth an irresistible claim to our regard, and to 

 command our attention. And when we have it in 

 our power, from our situation and circumstances, to 

 direct our studies that way, not to do so is, to say 

 the least, to shut ourselves out from some of the 

 purest pleasures of which the human mind is capable. 

 But to pass from the case of these persons, we 

 apprehend that there are some professed lovers of 

 Natural History, who want to be further stimulated 

 in the exercise of their own selected pursuits. Such 

 as live at a distance from the great centres of liter- 

 ary concourse, who have no access to museums and 



* Lucas on Happiness. 



