(73). 



Natural History. The value, indeed, to the naturalist 

 himself is beyond dispute there can be few better or 

 purer pleasures than those which arise from a knowledge 

 of nature, growing daily, and daily sought with greater 

 patience, surer confidence, and increasing hopeful- 

 ness, sought, moreover, largely in the open air, in the 

 woods, on the downs or on the heaths, amid sights and 

 sounds of beauty and wonder, in little things no less 

 than in great. But apart from this, the only answer to 

 the question is that in one sense every one knows, for 

 all knowledge has a value unique in kind and not 

 measurable by other standards; and in another sense 

 no one knows, for no one can foresee what, in the life- 

 time of the naturalist or afterwards, will be the larger 

 result of facts carefully collected on a very large scale 

 and minutely studied. The moment when they may be 

 of use for the solution or illumination of larger problems 

 may be long delayed or it may come soon; but the 

 advance of science consists in no small degree in the 

 discovery (often the sudden discovery) of the meaning 

 of some great accumulation of data patiently made by 

 workers who sought for no reward beyond the satisfac- 

 tion of adding to the sum of human knowledge., and 

 finding their own happiness in a pure and enlightening 

 pursuit. With the change of a single word we may 

 apply the words of Abt Vogler in Browning's poem: 

 c The rest may reason, and welcome; 'tis we musicians 

 know.' 





