Feb., 1913. The Queensland Naturalist. 245 
inductive, commences with empiricism ; it is true science, 
exactly in so far as it strives to pass from the empirical 
stage, into that of deduction of empirical, from more 
general truths. 
It leads to pleasurable pursuits, as has been well said : 
“ The pupil under the influence of a teacher enthusiastic 
in the study of nature and natural phenomena, and thoroughly 
imbued with a love of truth, for its own sake, will find a new 
charm in his surroundings. His walks to and from school, 
or into the country, will yield an added pleasure, and his 
happiness will be multiplied.” He will now ” find tongues 
in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and 
good in everything,” and so we have the genesis of the ideal 
field naturalist. It is an important contributor to general 
culture, for not only has the true student of living things, 
the possession of a high vantage point, from which he can 
view the domain of universal nature, an outer world to so 
many ; but in acquiring a knowledge of Biology he becomes 
conversant with ” a science that has affected all departments 
of human thought more deeply and more permanently 
than all the other sciences.” He will possess, moreover, the 
key to much of what is best in our literature and art. 
Although plants and animals have been regarded as 
tlie outcome of ” the blind play of the forces of nature,” 
and the student of biology may so regard them, or nobler 
interpretation of nature may pervade his mind and persuade 
him otherwise ; and although this is not a necessary outcome 
of the study of plants and animals and all it invoN’es, a sense 
of beauty wiQ constantly be appealed to and ministered to, 
and he may feel with our dear old poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, 
all that he felt with regard to nature, and even towards the 
“ wee, modest, crimson- tipped flower.” ” Thou bonnie 
gem” of Robert Burns. Even so the humble flower of the 
field will claim from him his reverence. 
"In the ordinary mind, this study of living things is 
associated — it may be — merely with the idea of the capture 
of butterflies and moths, or the cutting of the pretty flowers, 
whose nectar they quaff ; or it may regard the young devotee 
as a gatherer of shells by the sea-shore ; or if other objects 
come within the range of his study, as one handling things 
repulsive and to be abhored. But suffer not the neo-phyte 
in the domain of biological science to be influenced by this 
opinion ; let him rather be impressed by the names of great 
men, who have pursued one or more branches of it, long and 
strenuously, and have rendered themselves, notwithstanding, 
famous for all time. It has been well said that—” to make 
out the way in which the exquisite machinery of nature is 
meant to work, is no childish work. The very attempt will 
lead the naturalist to acquaint himself with scientific laws 
