18 INTRODUCTION. 



tivators were considered as triflers, wasting their 

 energies upon that which could profit nothing ; and 

 the information which it affords was looked upon 

 as unworthy of the attention of persons fitted for 

 intellectual pursuits. Now, it is raised in popular 

 estimation to the highest dignity, and is pronounced 

 to be a science capable of exercising the most splen- 

 did talents, and of affording pleasure to the most 

 improved minds. 



Of the several changes that have recently taken 

 place in society this is not the least important. The 

 diversified productions of Nature, — those objects, in 

 the formation of which have been exercised unlimited 

 wisdom and power, — are not now considered beneath 

 the notice of the wisest of the sons of men. It still, 

 however, remains to be perceived, that in the con- 

 struction of the familiar fly that buzzes through our 

 apartments, not less than in the frame of the mighty 

 elephant, — in the simple blade of grass that springs 

 from between the stones of the pavement, not less 

 than in the knotted oak or the graceful palm, — 

 in the small cube of salt, not less than in the gra- 

 nitic mountain or the volcanic cone, — there is some- 

 thing of a mysterious nature, the comprehension of 

 which would be a much more glorious achievement 

 than any that the human intellect has yet per- 

 formed. The ship that carries the adventurous 

 merchant over the great ocean is an object worthy 

 of our admiration ; but how complicated is its ap- 

 paratus, compared with the fins of the most com- 

 mon fish ! The balloon that floats calmly in the 

 atmosphere,^ — what an unwieldy instrument is it, 

 compared with those beautiful organs of Divine 

 workmanship by which the swallow is conveyed 



