II OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 63 



may, I am convinced/ take a profound hold upon 

 practical life, and that is, by its influence over 

 our finer feelings, as the greatest of all sources of 

 that pleasure which is derivable from beauty. I 

 do not pretend that natural-history knowledge, as 

 such, can increase our sense of the beautiful in 

 natural objects. I do not suppose that the dead 

 soul of Peter Bell, of whom the great poet of 

 nature says, 



A primrose by the river s brim, 

 A yellow primrose was to him, 

 And it was nothing more, 



would have been a whit roused from its apathy by 

 the information that the primrose is a Dicotyle- 

 donous Exogen, with a monopetalous corolla and 

 central placentation. But I advocate natural- 

 history knowledge from this point of view, because 

 it would lead us to seek the beauties of natural 

 objects, instead of trusting to chance to force them 

 on our attention. To a person uninstructed in 

 natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a 

 walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works 

 of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned 

 to the wall. Teach him something of natural 

 history, and you place in his hands a catalogue of 

 those which are worth turning round. Surely our 

 innocent pleasures are not so abundant in this life, 

 that we can afford to despise this or any other 

 source of them. We should fear being banished 

 for our neglect to that limbo, where the great 



