tNTRODUCTION. 



25 



tmy of his race, to compreliend nature, to lift the vail that 

 shrouds her phenomena, and, as it were, submit the results of 

 observation to the test of reason and of intellect. 



In reflecting upon the different degrees of enjoyment pre- 

 sented to us in the contemplation of nature, we find that the 

 <irst place must be assigned to a sensation, which is wholly 

 independent of ^n intimate acquaintance with the physical 

 phenomena presented to our view, or of the peculiar character 

 of the region surrounding us. In the uniform plain bounded 

 only by a distant horizon, where the lowly heather, the cistus, 

 or waving grasses, deck the soil ; on the ocean shore, where 

 the waves, softly rippling over the beach, leave a track, green 

 with the weeds of the sea ; every where, the mind is penetra- 

 ted by the same sense of the grandeur and vast expanse of 

 nature, revealing to the soul, by a mysterious inspiration, the 

 existence of laws that regulate the forces of the universe. 

 Mere communion with nature, mere contact with the free air, 

 exercise a soothing yet strengthening influence on the wearied 

 spirit, calm the storm of passion, and soften the heart when 

 shaken by sorrow to its inmost depths. Every where, in ev 

 ery region of the globe, in every stage of intellectual culture, 

 the same sources of enjoyment are alike vouchsafed to man. 

 The earnest and solemn thoughts awakened by a communion 

 with nature intuitively arise from a presentiment of the order 

 and harmony pervading the whole universe, and from the 

 contrast we draw between the narrow limits of our own ex- 

 istence and the image of infinity revealed on every side, wheth- 

 er we look upward to the starry vault of heaven, scan the far- 

 stretching plain before us, or seek to trace the dim horizon 

 across the vast expanse of ocean. 



The contemplation of the individual characteristics of the 

 landscape, and of the conformation of the land in any definite 

 region of the earth, gives rise to a different source of enjoy- 

 ment, awakening impressions that are more vivid, better de- 

 fined, and more congenial to certain phases of the mind, than 

 those of which we have already spoken. At one time the 

 heart is stirred by a sense of the grandeur of the face of na- 

 ture, by the strife of the elements, or, as in Northern Asia, by 

 the aspect of the dreary barrenness of the far-stretching steppes ; 

 at another time, softer, emotions are excited by the contempla- 

 tion of rich harvests wrested by the hand of man from the 

 wild fertility of nature, or by the sight of human habitations 

 raised beside some wild and foaming torrent. Here I regard 

 less the degree of intensity than the difference existing in thi? 

 Vol. I.— B 



