10 
SELF-TEACHING. 
gestion and speculation only, not of established and positive 
conclusion. At present, then, all that I can hope is to excite 
an interest in a topic of much economical importance, by 
pointing out the directions and illustrating the modes in 
which human action has been or may be most injurious or 
most beneficial in its influence upon the physical conditions of 
the earth we inhabit. 
Observation of Nature. 
In these pages, as in all I have ever written or propose to 
write, it is my aim to stimulate, not to satisfy, curiosity, and it 
is no part of my object to save my readers the labor of obser¬ 
vation or of thought. For labor is life, and 
Death lives where power lives unused.* 
Self is the schoolmaster whose lessons are best worth his 
wages; and since the subject I am considering has not yet 
become a branch of formal instruction, those whom it may 
interest can, fortunately, have no pedagogue but themselves. 
To the natural philosopher, the descriptive poet, the painter, 
and the sculptor, as well as to the common observer, the power 
most important to cultivate, and, at the same time, hardest to 
acquire, is that of seeing what is before him. Sight is a fac¬ 
ulty ; seeing, an art. The eye is a physical, but not a self¬ 
acting apparatus, and in general it sees only what it seeks. 
Like a mirror, it reflects objects presented to it; but it may be 
as insensible as a mirror, and it does not necessarily perceive 
what it reflects.f It is disputed whether the purely material 
* Yerses addressed by G. C. to Sir Walter Raleigh.— Hakluyt, i, p. 668. 
t- I troer, at Syuets Sands er lagt i Oiet, 
Mens dette kun er Redskab. Synet strommer 
Fra Sjaelens Dyb, og Oiets fine Nerver 
Gaae ud fra Hjernens hemmelige Vcerksted. 
Paludan-Mullee, Kong Rene’s Dattcr , sc. ii. 
In the material eye, you think, sight lodgeth ! 
The eye is but an organ. Seeing streameth 
From the soul’s inmost depths. The fine perceptive 
Nerve springetli from the brain’s mysterious workshop. 
