He has laid open for us? If you feel that, as I think you all will
some day feel, then you will surely feel likewise that it will be a
good deed--I do not say a necessary duty, but still a good deed and
praiseworthy--to help physical science forward; and to add your
contributions, however small, to our general knowledge of the earth.
And how much may be done for science by British officers, especially
on foreign stations, I need not point out. I know that much has
been done, chivalrously and well, by officers; and that men of
science owe them and give them hearty thanks for their labours. But
I should like, I confess, to see more done still. I should like to
see every foreign station what one or two highly-educated officers
might easily make it, an advanced post of physical science, in
regular communication with our scientific societies at home, sending
to them accurate and methodic details of the natural history of each
district--details ninety-nine hundredths of which might seem
worthless in the eyes of the public, but which would all be precious
in the eyes of scientific men, who know that no fact is really
unimportant; and more, that while plodding patiently through
seemingly unimportant facts, you may stumble on one of infinite
importance, both scientific and practical. For the student of
nature, gentlemen, if he will be but patient, diligent, methodical,
is liable at any moment to the same good fortune as befell Saul of
old, when he went out to seek his father's asses, and found a
kingdom.

There are those, lastly, who have neither time nor taste for the
technicalities and nice distinctions of formal Natural History; who
enjoy Nature, but as artists or as sportsmen, and not as men of
science. Let them follow their bent freely: but let them not
suppose that in following it they can do nothing towards enlarging