X PREFATORY NOTICE. 



there. So that a man's contemplation of nature is, 

 like his religion, a subject of personal pleasure to 

 himself ; and, as is apt to be the case with religion, 

 if he makes too much parade of it before the world 

 he runs some danger of losing it. Besides, although 

 there are few occupations more pleasant than 

 rational conversations on natural history with 

 friends, especially with young friends, when one 

 can instruct them without appearing to act the 

 schoolmaster; yet still the sweetest hours of a 

 man's converse with nature are those during which 

 he has it all to himself. It is then that the career 

 of thought runs free and far as the light of heaven ; 

 and vanity is subdued, and bitterness is sweetened, 

 and hope is elevated, by the comparison of one's 

 own little acquirements and cares, with the mighty 

 expanse around, and of the perfect nothingness 

 of this life in respect to that which then rises clearly 

 and convincingly in the anticipation. 



That is the feeling of natural objects which I 

 have wished to excite and encourage : if that end 

 could be seen and kept in view, the observation 

 of the facts would be a very easy matter ; and, as 

 every person must begin observation in his own 

 way, or else lose all the pleasure of it, the less 

 of detail which was mingled with the attempt to 



