7 
true that we must speak with great caution of matters so refined as these are, and 
so little within the limits of our common observation ; but still so many of them 
are clearly established, and they point so naturally to the establishment of the 
others, that it is desirable to keep the spirit of inquiry awake, and ready to avail 
itself of every means of additional knowledge. 
Some may ask, what all this has to do with the study of the Natural Sciences ? 
but such a question can be put only by those who have confined themselves to one 
department, and are, by necessary consequence, ignorant of the general bearings 
even of that department in its relations to, and its influence upon, the rest of nature. 
Let any one cast a glance of knowledge over the globe which we inhabit, and mark 
the various productions of its different hemispheres, its different latitudes, its 
different elevations, its different surfaces and soils, and its different alternations of 
land and of water; and he will not fail to see that some principle which will meet 
all those differences is absolutely necessary, if his contemplation is to do any¬ 
thing else than to torment him with the sting of his own ignorance. Why grows 
the pine in such countless millions in the higher latitudes of the northern hemis¬ 
phere ; while in those of the south there are no corresponding trees, except a few 
clusters of araucarias ? Why does the fern stand, in certain southern forests, as 
a tall and perennial ornament, while our plants of the same natural family die 
down to the earth every season ? Why does the palm rear its majestic stem and 
expand its graceful crown of leaves in every tropical country round the earth’s 
girdle, and constitute there the most valuable tree, both for food and for shelter, 
to man ; while so high as the middle latitudes of the quadrants, not a single speci¬ 
men, planted by Nature, is to be found ? 
Such are one or two, out of countless thousands of questions, which stand at 
the very portal of the temple of Nature, loudly demanding each its answer before 
the student can profitably enter. We might extend them to every department of 
both kingdoms of active nature; and as the members of these are composed of 
the same matter as that which we call the inactive kingdom, it also must be in¬ 
cluded. All this, too, is confined to the present moment; but when once a man 
is imbued with a love of Nature, he cannot resist looking back at the record. Nor 
will he fail to ask himself such questions as the following : why are our tree fern, 
our elephant, our hippopotamus, and countless others, to be found only buried 
in the earth; while other regions in the world have theirs still growing or alive 
on its surface ? We shall return to the subject. 
