Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature, or Hints of Inducement to the Study of Natural Productions and Appearances, in Their Connexions and Relations
A man who observes nature is not to be supposed to collect an audience every time that he looks abroad upon the earth or upward to the sky, and though he be ever so zealous a member of any of the societies which have for their object the ad vancement of his favourite study, it is but rarely that he can have any thing worth communicating cv there. So that a man's contemplation of nature is, like his religion, a subject of personal pleasure to himself; and, as is apt to be the case with religion, if he makes too much parade of it before the world he runs some danger of losing it. Besides, although there are few occupations more pleasant than rational conversations on Natural History with friends, espe cially with young friends, when one can instruct them without appearing to act the schoolmaster; yet still the sweetest hours of a man's converse with nature are those during which he has it all to himself. It is then that the career of thought runs free and far as the light of heaven; and vanity is subdued, and bitterness is sweetened, and h0pe is elevated, by the comparison of one's own little acquirements and cares, with the mighty expanse around, and of the perfect nothingness of this life in respect to that which then rises clearly and convincingly in the anticipation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
