There is yet another way in which natural history may, I am convinced, take a profound hold upon practical life,—­and that is, by its influence over our finer feelings, as the greatest of all sources of that pleasure which is derivable from beauty.  I do not pretend that natural-history knowledge, as such, can increase our sense of the beautiful in natural objects.  I do not suppose that the dead soul of Peter Bell, of whom the great poet of nature says,—­

     A primrose by the river’s brim,
     A yellow primrose was to him,—­
     And it was nothing more,—­

would have been a whit roused from its apathy, by the information that the primrose is a Dicotyledonous Exogen, with a monopetalous corolla and central placentation.  But I advocate natural-history knowledge from this point of view, because it would lead us to seek the beauties of natural objects, instead of trusting to chance to force them on our attention.  To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country, or sea-side, stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.  Teach him something of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue of those which are worth turning round.  Surely our innocent pleasures are not so abundant in this life, that we can afford to despise this or any other source of them.  We should fear being banished for our neglect to that limbo, where the great Florentine tells us are those who, during this life, “wept when they might be joyful.”

But I shall be trespassing unwarrantably on your kindness, if I do not proceed at once to my last point—­the time at which Physiological Science should first form a part of the Curriculum of Education.

The distinction between the teaching of the facts of a science as instruction, and the teaching it systematically as knowledge, has already been placed before you in a previous lecture:  and it appears to me, that, as with other sciences, the common facts of Biology—­the uses of parts of the body—­the names and habits of the living creatures which surround us—­may be taught with advantage to the youngest child.  Indeed, the avidity of children for this kind of knowledge, and the comparative ease with which they retain it, is something quite marvellous.  I doubt whether any toy would be so acceptable to young children as a vivarium, of the same kind as, but of course on a smaller scale than, those admirable devices in the Zoological Gardens.

On the other hand, systematic teaching in Biology cannot be attempted with success until the student has attained to a certain knowledge of physics and chemistry:  for though the phaenomena of life are dependent neither on physical nor on chemical, but on vital forces, yet they result in all sorts of physical and chemical changes, which can only be judged by their own laws.

And now to sum up in a few words the conclusions to which I hope you see reason to follow me.