Natural History, should abide here in Britain to your life's end, and
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 Desmidiae, Diatoms, and all
those wondrous atomies which seem as yet to defy our classification
into plants or animals. Suppose he learnt 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 my
readers to be, if he had not gained thereby somewhat of the most
valuable of treasures--namely, that inductive habit of mind, that
power of judging fairly of facts, without which no good or lasting
work will be done, whether in physical science, in social science, in
politics, in philosophy, in philology, or in history.

But more: let me urge you to study Natural Science, on grounds which
may be to you new and unexpected--on social, I had almost said on
political, grounds.

We all know, and I trust we all love, the names of Liberty, Equality,
and Brotherhood. We feel, I trust, that these words are too
beautiful not to represent true and just ideas; and that therefore