THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 183 
no means explains the relation which ought to exist between 
them. As a matter of fact, nature is myriad-sided and pre- 
sents many points of approach. From the dawn of civilisation 
to our own day, human thought and attention have been directed 
to the study of nature and with ever-varying motives. The veiled 
Isis has had that attraction which always gathers round the half- 
seen, the half-apprehended, and in the half-light men have seen 
in her what their own hearts prompted them to see; the reflex of 
human hopes and fears, the interpreter of human destiny, the 
mighty Mother in whose keeping were the keys not only of life 
and death but also of 
“the mystery 
. . the heavy and the weary weight 
Of all this unintelligible world.” 
Thus nature has been the load-stone which has drawn all in- 
quiring spirits, from those whose motive has been the pure de- 
sire for knowledge, down to the commercialism of these lattes 
days when she is wooed to be exploited. 
Now we are convinced of one thing, and that is that the 
latter is never the view of the true naturalist. Not for what 
nature can bring us in hard eash, but for what she is do we 
love her, do we devote ourselves to her, do we woo her. T 
say woo, for only after long and patient devotion does she litt 
one fold of the mighty veil, does she grant one glimpse of the 
possible solution of age-old mysteries. 
The true naturalist approaches nature in the spirit of rever- 
ence, of humility, recognising how puny are human intellects, 
and how gigantic the field in which men desire to labour, recog- 
nising also that though he give himself wholly to the task, and 
be prepared to 
“Spurn delights and live laborious days,” 
he cannot attain any finality, and all he can do is to gather up 
a few facts, make a“few observations, a few deductions and 
leave it to posterity to build with what he has collected, or leave 
it as inadequate, or cast it out as inaccurate. 
But one may say: What has this to do with us? Ts not this 
the province of the research student, this patient, unflagging 
labour, this whole-souled devotion? How ean such an attitude 
be attributed to us, who are for the most part men and women 
engrossed all day long and eyery day in the. difficult task of 
keeping our foothold secure in the bustling, hurrying throne of 
the world’s wage-earners? What have we to do with whole- 
