MORE SEEN IN A BEETLE THAN IN A PLANET 199 
will find enough to engage their faculties, and 
neither will do the work of the other efficiently. 
There is no reason why one should despise the 
other. Contempt of anything but vice indicates 
an unsound mind, a defective judgment, an ignor¬ 
ance of the relations which men have to each other 
and to their Creator, an undue self-estimation, and 
a contempt of the rights of other men. He who 
measures the orbit of a comet has not, therefore, 
higher faculties than he who examines the cytoblast 
of a fungus; and there is far more to be seen by 
us in a beetle than in a planet; upon that granite 
mountain opposite, at the distance of nine or ten 
miles, than in the sun and in the moon and the 
stars .—Natural History of Deeside , p. 120. 
27._The Scenery of Benabuird. 
On reaching the summit, I found it to be a 
long, broad, rounded ridge, covered with stones, 
some of which were rounded, others angular. 
Here were a few mosses and a considerable 
quantity of Coreas rigida. The scene which here 
presented itself was exceedingly striking and im¬ 
pressive. All around, mountains appeared behind 
mountains, with their rocks, ridges, and valleys. 
A solemn stillness prevailed; nor was a living 
creature to be seen; the clouds rolled their dusky 
wreaths along the ridges. The beams of the setting 
sun darted here and there through the clouds, 
which exhibited a hundred ever-varying shades. 
