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Show 108 INFORMATION EYERYWHERE. greatest importance and value, which used on former occasiOns to be despised. Therefore, as we must beware ~f neglecting small things, so ahw we must not refram fro~ observing and examining any thing, though t~at thmg may be neglected or despised, or even dended; for a thing which is any or all of these may contain the substance of the most valuable d~scovery that it is possible for us to make. Th.ere IS no substance and no event independent and of Itself alone. They belong to the great family of nature and th~ vast succession of appearances ; and, whatever their aspects may be to our mere gaze, they may have a long tale to tell of the past and a most important revelation to make of the future. To the t;tnreflec_ting_ observer, the chalky cliffs of Kent, with theu dispersed nodules of flint may seem very dull and senseless instructers · a~d vet those beds of chalk have once been sea-shells imd those flints have once been sponges ; so that the two together tell us that those very cliffs, which now stand beetling over the ocean, must at some period or other have been far below its surface. Indeed, then~ is not a substance · with which we meet, or an appearance that can strike any of the senses, but which, if we will hear it, has <TOt an in!eresting story;_ and. whether we visit 5 p}aces th~ckly tenanted with ammals, places thickly planted With vegetables, the barren wilds, the ocean shores the wide expanse of its waters, or the wastes of drifting sand,-nay, even if we could mount up from the earth altogether, and visit the region of clouds, we should find enough to exercise all our observation, occupy all our thoughts, and gratify and delight us to the full measure of our capacity for enjoyment. We speak of the waste and the wilderness ; but, in ~ruth, th.ere are none such in nature: the only deserts In creatiOn are human senses which do not observe, and a human mind which cannot compare and think. Thus, if we complain that we are deserted and soli. NO WASTE IN NATURE. 109 tary, our complaining is unjust: nature never for .. sakes us and leaves us alone,-it is we who are insensible of and neglect nature. And when we do so, we violate our own nature as much as we belie and libel the rest of nature around us ; for our natura~ bent, ~ur natu~al pleasur~ is to observe every thmg, be It what It may, whiCh comes within the range of our observation; and if we refrain from doing so, we are degraded from our proper rank in the creation, anrl the degradation is our own fault. And t_he punishment of shame and inferiority, and the misery of a useless and ungratified mind, which are upon u~, are of on~ own bringing, and brought by us agamst every mducement to an opposite course ; so that, even though there were any one to pity us, we merit not pity, but ridicule; because our eyes are open and all our senses fitted for the perception of something better ; and we, from mere laziness, and not only that, but by stifling with labour, and often with hard labour, the powers which have been given us, knowingly remain ignorant when we might more easily be informed, and take the crooked path of error when we well know that the straight road of truth is both shorter and more easy. Those two which have been mentioned to<Tether with some ramifications into which they m~y b~anch, a_re perhaps the most stub~orn obstacles in the way of the successful observatiOn of nature ; and if we could get the better of them, we should have a will to the work, and where there is a will, it is true, and cc;>mmon even to a proverb, that there is a way. ~ut as, e":en_ where they exist, and are acted upon m all thmr mveteracy, we are not very willing to confess them, it may, perhaps, be as well to suppose that we have got the better of them, and are disposed, not only to push vigorously onward in the road of observation, but to be informed of everv K |