30 GRAND USE OF A BOOK. 



This is to be accoicplished or approximated, not 

 by the enumeration of details^ but by dashing onward 

 with the great principles, and throwing a glance now 

 here, now there, to connect the immediate subjects 

 with all the necessary collateral ones, as we career 

 along. Who, when the gallant ship is sweeping by, 

 with so much velocity that the landsman who gazes 

 from the shore feels his head turn giddy, and nature 

 around him to reel again as if aroused by the spirit- 

 stirring sight, would stoop down to count the pebbles 

 on the beach? "Who, when the falcon is on the 

 chace, or the eagle on the stoop, would pause to count 

 the feathers in a wing, or the spots on a feather ? 

 And much more, when the mind is on its nobler 

 movements, bounding and beaming onward, " from 

 mortal to immortal ken," in the glorious course of 

 thought, more fleet than any ship that ever stem- 

 med the main, or any wing that ever cleft the air, 

 who would stop it for mere details? The attempt 

 were vain as that to charm down the sun from the 

 firmament, or fetter the careering earth with a 

 cobweb. 



The details are for an after time — for letting the 

 mind easily down on its pillow, after the contest is 

 over, and the prize won. They are for reference, and 

 belong to the humbler department of (what is called) 

 memory; but the book of instruction ought to be of 

 more spirit-stirring character — it should enkindle 

 the fire which it is to guide — arouse the mind which 

 it is to illuminate. 



Books on natural history, which are addressed to 

 the unlearned part of the public, and to the young 

 especially, consist in general of nothing but details; 

 and thus, though they have much in them to be 

 remembered— or to speak more in accordance with 

 the fact, to be forgotten, they have nothing to be 



