ons of Nature are universal; and she attaches
large rewards to diligence in attending to them. She evidently intends,
as we have said, that the parent and teacher should take up, and follow
out her suggestions in this great work; but even when this is delayed,
or altogether neglected, her part of the proceedings is not abandoned.
Nature is so strong within the pupil, and her educational promptings are
so powerful, that even without a teacher, he is able for a time to teach
himself. In man, and even among many of the more perfect specimens of
the lower creation, Nature has suspended the larger portion of their
comforts and their security, upon attention to her lessons, and the
practical application of that which she teaches. The dog which shuns the
person who had previously beaten him; the infant that clings to its
nurse, and refuses to leave her; the boy who refuses to cross the ditch
he never tried before; the savage who traces the foot-prints of his
game; the man who shrinks from a ruffian countenance; and Newton, when
the fall of an apple prompted him to pursue successively the lessons
which that simple event suggested to him, are all examples of the
teachings of Nature,--specimens of the manner in which she enables her
pupils to collect and retain knowledge, and stimulates them to apply it.
Wherever these suggestions of Nature are individually neglected, there
must be discomfort and danger, and wretchedness to the _person_ doing
so; and wherever they are not taken up by communities, and socially
taught by education of some kind or another, _society_ must necessarily
remain little better than savage.--The opposite of this is equally true;
for wherever they are personally attended to, the individual promotes
his own safety and comfort; and when they are socially taken up and
followed out by education, however imperfectly, then civilization, and
national security, prosperity, and happiness, are the invariable
consequences.

The information which we are to derive from the Academy of Nature, is to
be found chiefly in those instances where she is least interfered with
by the operations of others. In these we shall endeavour to follow her;
and, by classifying her several processes, and investigating each of
them in its order, we shall assuredly be able to arrive at some first
principles, to guide us in imitating the modes of her working, and which
will enable us, in some measure, to share in her success.

When we take a c