own possession, but as the possession of its Creator, independent
of us, our tastes, our needs, or our vain-glory, I hardly need to
speak; for it is the very essence of a nature's faculty - the very
tenure of his existence: and without truthfulness science would be
as impossible now as chivalry would have been of old.

And last, but not least, the perfect naturalist should have in him
the very essence of true chivalry, namely, self-devotion; the
desire to advance, not himself and his own fame or wealth, but
knowledge and mankind. He should have this great virtue; and in
spite of many shortcomings (for what man is there who liveth and
sinneth not?), naturalists as a class have it to a degree which
makes them stand out most honourably in the midst of a self-seeking
and mammonite generation, inclined to value everything by its money
price, its private utility. The spirit which gives freely, because
it knows that it has received freely; which communicates knowledge
without hope of reward, without jealousy and rivalry, to fellow-
students and to the world; which is content to delve and toil
comparatively unknown, that from its obscure and seemingly
worthless results others may derive pleasure, and even build up
great fortunes, and change the very face of cities and lands, by
the practical use of some stray talisman which the poor student has
invented in his laboratory; - this is the spirit which is abroad
among our scientific men, to a greater degree than it ever has been
among any body of men for many a century past; and might well be
copied by those who profess deeper purposes and a more exalted
calling, than the discovery of a new zoophyte, or the
classification of a moorland crag.

And it is these qualities, however imperfectly they may be realized