THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



IT may be a trite observation, but it is at the same 

 time a true one, that " there is neither waste nor ruin 

 in nature." When the productions of human art fall 

 into decay, they are gone ; and if the artist does 

 not replace them by new formations, the species is 

 gone also ; but the works of nature are their own re- 

 pairers and continuers, .and that which we are accus- 

 tomed to look upon as destruction and putrefaction, is 

 a step in the progress of new being and life. This is 

 the grand distinction between the productions of nature 

 and those of art ; those in which the same power finds 

 both the materials and the form, and those in which 

 the form is merely impressed upon previously existing 

 materials. 



The substances in nature are in themselves endowed 

 with faculties, unseen and inscrutable by man in any 

 thing but their results, which produce all the varied 



