uted to the employment of thousands of printers, by enabling Esparto grass to be bleached and formed into paper for the use of our daily press. The numerous experimental investigations in relation to coal-gas have been the means of extending the use of that substance, and of increasing the employment of workmen and others connected with its manufacture. The discovery of the alkaline metals by Davy, of cyanide of potassium, of nickel, phosphorus, the common acids, and a multitude of other substances, has led to the employment of a whole army of workmen in the conversion of those substances into articles of utility. The foregoing examples might be greatly enlarged upon, and a great many others might be selected from the sciences of physics and chemistry: but those mentioned will suffice. There is not a force of Nature, nor scarcely a material substance that we employ, which has not been the subject of several, and in some cases of numerous, original experimental researches, many of which have resulted, in a greater or less degree, in increasing the employment for workmen and others."—(Nature, No. 25.)
Suppose that any one of you, learning a little sound natural history, should observe nothing but the hedgerow-plants, he would find that there is much more to be seen in those mere hedgerow-plants than he fancies now. The microscope will reveal to him in the tissues of any wood, of any seed, wonders which will first amuse him, then puzzle him, and at last (I hope) awe him, as he perceives that smallness of size interferes in no way with perfection of development, and that "Nature," as has been well said, "is greatest in that which is least." And more. Suppose that he went further still. Suppose that he extended his researches somewhat to those minuter vegetable forms, the mosses, fungi, lichens. Suppose that he went a little further still, and tried what the microscope would show him in any stagnant pool, whether fresh water or salt, of Desmidiæ, Diatoms, and all those wondrous atomies which seem as yet to defy our classification into plants or animals. Suppose he learned something of this, but nothing of aught else. Would he have gained no solid wisdom? He would be a stupider man than I have a right to believe any of you to be, if he had not gained thereby somewhat of the most valuable of treasures, namely, that scientific habit of mind which (as has been well said) is only common-sense well regulated, the art of seeing; the art of knowing what he sees; the art of comparing, of perceiving true likenesses and true differences, and so of classifying and arranging what he sees; the art of connecting facts together in his own mind, in chains of cause and effect; and that accurately, patiently, calmly, without prejudice, vanity, or temper. Accuracy, patience, freedom from prejudice, carelessness for all except the truth, whatever the truth may be—are not these virtues which it is worth any trouble to gain? Virtues, not merely of the intellect, but of the character; which, once gained, a man can apply to all subjects, and employ for the acquisition of all solid knowl-
