University of Virginia Library

THE BLESSED INFLUENCE OF THE
STUDIES OF NATURE.

“Stand out of my sunshine!” said Diogenes
to Alexander, when the emperor asked
what service he could render him. Haughty
as the philosopher's reply may sound, it
merely expresses the honest independence,
which every highly cultivated and well balanced
mind may feel towards those, who
possess nothing better than the accidental
distinctions of rank or fortune. He indeed
deserves our pity, who needs the condescending
smile of the proud, or the heartless

flattery of the vain, either to rouse him to
exertion, or warm him into happiness.

The power of self-excitement is the most
desirable of all attainments, and it is the
most rare. To love knowledge merely for
its usefulness—to form and strengthen virtuous
dispositions, with the hope of no other
reward than the deep tranquillity they bring—
is a task achieved by few; yet it is the only
simple and direct road to lasting happiness.
He who can find intellectual excitement in
the fall of an apple, or the hues of a wild
flower, may well say to the officious world,
“Stand out of my sunshine!” To him Nature
is an open volume, where truths of the
loftiest import are plainly written; and the
temptations and anxieties of this life have no
power to cast a shadow on its broad and
beautiful pages.

I do not mean that solitude is bliss, even
where enjoyment is of the purest kind. An
eminence, that places us above the hopes and
fears, the joys and sorrows of social life,
must indeed be an unenviable one; but that
which puts us beyond the reach of the ever-varying

tide of circumstance and opinion, is
surely desirable; and nothing on which the
mind can be employed tends so much to produce
this state of internal sunshine, as the
study of Nature in her various forms.

Politics, love of gain, ambition of renown,
—every thing, in short, which can be acted
upon by the passions of mankind,—have a
corroding influence on the human soul. But
Nature, ever majestic and serene, moves on
with the same stately step and beaming
smile, whether a merchantman is wrecked,
or an empire overthrown. The evils of
man's heart pollute all with which they can
be incorporated; but they cannot defile her
holy temple. The doors are indeed closed
against the restless and the bad; but the radiant
goddess is ever at the altar, willing to
smile upon all who are pure enough to love
her quiet beauty.

Ambition may play a mighty game—it
may task the sinews of nations, and make
the servile multitude automaton dancers to
its own stormy music; but sun, and moon,
and stars, go forth on their sublime mission,

independent of its power; and its utmost
efforts cannot change the laws which produce
the transient glory of the rainbow.

Avarice may freeze the genial current of
affection, and dry up all the springs of sympathy
within the human soul; but it cannot
diminish the pomp of summer, or restrain
the prodigality of autumn.

Fame may lead us on in pursuit of glittering
phantoms, until the diseased mind
loses all relish for substantial good; but it
cannot share the eternity of light, or the immortality
of the minutest atom.

He who has steered his bark, ever so skilfully,
through the sea of politics, rarely, if
ever, finds a quiet haven. His vexations
and his triumphs have all been of an exciting
character; they have depended on outward
circumstances, over which he had very limited
power; and when the turbulent scene
has passed away, he finds, too late, that he
has lived on the breath of others, and that
happiness has no home within his heart.

And what is the experience of him who
has existed only for wealth? who has safely

moored his richly-freighted vessel in the spacious
harbour of successful commerce?—
Does he find that happiness can, like modern
love, be bought with gold? You may
see him hurrying about to purchase it in
small quantities, wherever the exhibitions of
taste and talent offer it for sale; but the article
is too ethereal to be baled for future
use, and it soon evaporates amid the emptiness
of his intellectual warehouse.

He that lives only for fame, will find that
happiness and renown are scarcely speaking
acquaintance. Even if he could catch the
rainbow he has so eagerly pursued, he would
find its light fluctuating with each changing
sunbeam, and fading at the touch of every
passing cloud.

Nor is he who has wasted the energies
of his youth in disentangling the knotty skein
of controversy, more likely to find the evening
of his days serene and tranquil. The
demon of dogmatism, or of doubt, may have
grappled him closely, and converted his early
glow of feeling, and elasticity of thought,
into rancorous prejudice, or shattered faith.

But the deep streams of quiet thought and
pure philosophy gush forth abundantly from
all the hiding-places of Nature; there is no
drop of bitterness at the fountain; the clear
waters reflect none of the Proteus forms of
human pride; and ever, as they flow, their
peaceful murmurs speak of heaven.

The enjoyment that depends on powerful
excitement saps the strength of manhood,
and leaves nothing for old age but discontent
and desolation. Yet we need amusements
in the decline of life, even more than in its
infancy; and where shall we find any so
safe, satisfactory, and dignified, as battery
and barometer, telescope and prism?

Electric power may be increased with less
danger than man's ambition; it is far safer
to weigh the air than a neighbour's motives;
it is more disquieting to watch tempests
lowering in the political horizon, than it is to
gaze at volcanoes in the moon; and it is
much easier to separate and unite the colours
in a ray of light, than it is to blend the
many-coloured hues of truth, turned out of
their course by the sharp corners of angry
controversy.

Finally, he who drinks deeply at the fountain
of natural science, will reflect the cheerfulness
of his own spirit on all things around.
If the sympathy of heart and mind be within
his reach, he will enjoy it more keenly than
other men; and if solitude be his portion, he
can, in the sincerity of a full and pious mind,
say to all the temptations of fame and pleasure,
“Stand ye out of my sunshine!”