" [1]
Mackay justly exclaims:
"Blessings on Science! When the earth seemed old,
When Faith grew doting, and our reason cold,
'Twas she discovered that the world was young,
And taught a language to its lisping tongue."
Botany, for instance, is by many regarded as a dry science. Yet though
without it we may admire flowers and trees, it is only as strangers, only
as one may admire a great man or a beautiful woman in a crowd. The
botanist, on the contrary--nay, I will not say the botanist, but one with
even a slight knowledge of that delightful science--when he goes out into
the woods, or into one of those fairy forests which we call fields, finds
himself welcomed by a glad company of friends, every one with something
interesting to tell. Dr. Johnson said that, in his opinion, when you had
seen one green field you had seen all; and a greater even than
Johnson--Socrates--the very type of intellect without science, said he was
always anxious to learn, and from fields and trees he could learn nothing.
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