We detect several
errors ourselves, and a more practised eye would no doubt expand the list.
The Quadrupeds deserved a more final and instructive report than they have
obtained.
These volumes deal much in measurements and minute descriptions, not
interesting to the general reader, with only here and there a colored
sentence to allure him, like those plants growing in dark forests, which
bear only leaves without blossoms. But the ground was comparatively
unbroken, and we will not complain of the pioneer, if he raises no flowers
with his first crop. Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one
day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are
added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural
history of man himself is still being gradually written. Men are knowing
enough after their fashion. Every countryman and dairymaid knows that the
coats of the fourth stomach of the calf will curdle milk, and what
particular mushroom is a safe and nutritious diet. You cannot go into any
field or wood, but it will seem as if every stone had been turned, and the
bark on every tree ripped up. But, after all, it is much easier to
discover than to see when the cover is off! It has been well said that
"the attitude of inspection is prone." Wisdom does not inspect, but
behold. We must look a long time before we can see. Slow are the
beginnings of philosophy. He has something demoniacal in him, who can
discern a law or couple two facts. We can imagine a time when,--"Water
runs down hill,"--may have been taught in the schools. The true man of
science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell,
taste, see, hear, feel, better than other men. His will be a deeper and
finer experience. We do not learn by inference and deduction, and the
application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and
sympathy. It is with science as with ethics,--we cannot know truth by
contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with
all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be
the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian
wisdom.
