And if, in the delivery of this lecture, I have persuaded any one to regard common things in a similar light and from a similar interest, I shall deem the time spent on it not altogether thrown away.  Mind, not water, is the ultimate solvent in nature, and everything, when thrown into it, will be found in the end to resolve itself into it, or what in nature is of kin to it.  And if a Latin poet could justify his interest in man by a reference to his own humanity, so may we rest content with nature when we find that we and it are parts of each other.  It is well to learn to look on nothing as private, but on everything as a part of a great whole, of which we ourselves are units; so shall we feel everywhere at home, and a sense of kinship with the remote as well as near within the round of existence.

FOOTNOTES: 

[C] The Highlanders are said to be able to offer it a stout defiance, for they can stand an immense quantity; and I have heard of an innkeeper in the north, who, when remonstrated with on account of his excessive drinking, so far admitted the justice of the charge implied, but pled that he could not be accused of undue indulgence the night before, as, whatever he might have drunk during the day, he had, after supper, had only seventeen glasses!

THE END.

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