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Scientific Essays and Lectures By: Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) |
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Contents: {0}
On Bio Geology
The Study of Natural History
Superstition
Science
Thoughts in a Gravel Pit
How to Study Natural History
The Natural Theology of the Future ON BIO GEOLOGY {1} I am not sure that the subject of my address is rightly chosen. I
am not sure that I ought not to have postponed a question of mere
natural history, to speak to you as scientific men, on the questions
of life and death, which have been forced upon us by the awful
warning of an illustrious personage's illness; of preventible
disease, its frightful prevalency; of the 200,000 persons who are
said to have died of fever alone since the Prince Consort's death,
ten years ago; of the remedies; of drainage; of sewage disinfection
and utilisation; and of the assistance which you, as a body of
scientific men, can give to any effort towards saving the lives and
health of our fellow citizens from those unseen poisons which lurk
like wild beasts couched in the jungle, ready to spring at any
moment on the unsuspecting, the innocent, the helpless. Of all this
I longed to speak; but I thought it best only to hint at it, and
leave the question to your common sense and your humanity; taking
for granted that your minds, like the minds of all right minded
Englishmen, have been of late painfully awakened to its importance.
It seemed to me almost an impertinence to say more in a city of
whose local circumstances I know little or nothing. As an old
sanitary reformer, practical, as well as theoretical, I am but too
well aware of the difficulties which beset any complete scheme of
drainage, especially in an ancient city like this; where men are
paying the penalty of their predecessors' ignorance; and dwelling,
whether they choose or not, over fifteen centuries of accumulated
dirt. And, therefore, taking for granted that there is energy and
intellect enough in Winchester to conquer these difficulties in due
time, I go on to ask you to consider, for a time, a subject which is
growing more and more important and interesting, a subject the study
of which will do much towards raising the field naturalist from a
mere collector of specimens as he was twenty years ago to a
philosopher elucidating some of the grandest problems. I mean the
infant science of Bio geology the science which treats of the
distribution of plants and animals over the globe, and the cause of
that distribution. I doubt not that there are many here who know far more about the
subject than I; who are far better read than I am in the works of
Forbes, Darwin, Wallace, Hooker, Moritz Wagner, and the other
illustrious men who have written on it. But I may, perhaps, give a
few hints which will be of use to the younger members of this
Society, and will point out to them how to get a new relish for the
pursuit of field science. Bio geology, then, begins with asking every plant or animal you
meet, large or small, not merely What is your name? That is the
collector and classifier's duty; and a most necessary duty it is,
and one to be performed with the most conscientious patience and
accuracy, so that a sound foundation may be built for future
speculations. But young naturalists should act not merely as
Nature's registrars and census takers, but as her policemen and
gamekeepers; and ask everything they meet How did you get there?
By what road did you come? What was your last place of abode? And
now you are here, how do you get your living? Are you and your
children thriving, like decent people who can take care of
themselves, or growing pauperised and degraded, and dying out? Not
that we have a fear of your becoming a dangerous class. Madame
Nature allows no dangerous classes, in the modern sense. She has,
doubtless for some wise reason, no mercy for the weak. She rewards
each organism according to its works; and if anything grows too weak
or stupid to take care of itself, she gives it its due deserts by
letting it die and disappear... Continue reading book >>
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