value from forming a part of the stream where- 

 with it is afterwards to he united. 



In the following pages, I neither desire, nor 

 shall I attempt to make the reader a profound 

 Naturalist ; it shall simply he my province to 

 endeavour to lay before him the leading truths 

 of nature, to lead him to their contemplation, 

 and ahove all, to induce him to seek out know- 

 ledge for its own sake, for such alone must be 

 the motive that actuates him who would success- 

 fully devote himself to mental improvement. 

 " Learning/' says Campbell, in his address to the 

 Glasgow students, " is a proud mistress ; she 

 will not be courted for our hopes of worldly 

 power, or for our ambition to be allied to her 

 family, or for the pride of showing her in public, 

 without the passion and devotion which we must 

 bear to her sacred self. It springs from our in- 

 terest in this magnificent and mysterious creation, 

 from our curiosity with regard to truth, and even 

 from our fondness for the airy colourings of fic- 

 tion. The blessings it confers, too, are no where 

 disputed ; for all agree that knowledge is power, 

 and that man is what he knows" 



