lsify it, seem it never so minute; which feels that because
it is a fact, it cannot be minute, cannot be unimportant; that it must be
a fact of God; a message from God; a voice of God, as Bacon has it,
revealed in things; and which therefore, just because it stands in solemn
awe of such paltry facts as the Scolopax feather in a snipe's pinion, or
the jagged leaves which appear capriciously in certain honeysuckles,
believes that there is likely to be some deep and wide secret underlying
them, which is worth years of thought to solve. That is reverence; a
reverence which is growing, thank God, more and more common; which will
produce, as it grows more common still, fruit which generations yet
unborn shall bless.

But as for that other reverence, which shuts its eyes and ears in pious
awe--what is it but cowardice decked out in state robes, putting on the
sacred Urim and Thummim, not that men may ask counsel of the Deity, but
that they may not? What is it but cowardice, very pitiable when
unmasked; and what is its child but ignorance as pitiable, which would be
ludicrous were it not so injurious? If a man comes up to Nature as to a
parrot or a monkey, with this prevailing thought in his head--Will it
bite me?--will he not be pretty certain to make up his mind that it may
bite him, and had therefore best be left alone? It is only the man of
courage--few and far between--who will stand the chance of a first bite,
in the hope of teaching the parrot to talk, or the monkey to fire off a
gun. And it is only the man of courage--few and far between--who will
stand the chance of a first bite from Nature, which may kill him for
aught he knows--for her teeth, though clumsy, are very strong--in order
that he may tame her and break her in to his use by the very same method
by which that admirable inductive philosopher, Mr. Rarey, used to break
in his horses; first, by not being afraid of them; and next, by trying to
find out what they were thinking of. But after all, as with animals, so
with Nature; cowardice is dangerous. The surest method of getting bitten
by an animal is to be afraid of it; and the surest method of being
injured by Nature is to be afraid of it. Only as far as we understand
Nature are we safe from it; and those who in any age counsel mankind not
to pry into the secrets of the universe, counsel them not to provide for
their own life and well-being, or for their children after them. But how
few there have been