VI PREFACE. 



lightful branch of Natural History. Can it 

 be maintained of a science, which requires for 

 its successful prosecution an intimate ac- 

 quaintance with Chemistry, Natural Philo- 

 sophy and Astronomy, with the details and 

 views of Zoology, Botany, and Mineralogy, 

 and which connects these different depart- 

 ments of knowledge in a most interesting 

 and striking manner, that it is of no va- 

 lue? Can it be maintained of Geology, 

 which discloses to us the history of the first 

 origin of organic beings, and traces their 

 gradual developement from the monade to 

 man himself, which enumerates and de- 

 scribes the changes that plants, animals, and 

 minerals the atmosphere, and the waters 

 of the globe- have undergone from the ear- 

 liest geological periods up to our own time, 

 and w^hich even instructs us in the earliest 

 history of the human species, that it offers 

 no gratification to the philosopher ? Can even 

 those who estimate the value of science, not 

 by intellectual desires, but by practical ad- 



