" My book is Nature, and it is always by we if I
want to read the works of God."
S. Antony.
" They who would advance in knowledge should lay
down this as a fundamental rule, not to take words for
things."
Locke.
" There is nothing, sir, too little for so little a creature
as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the
great art of having as little misery and as much happiness
as possible."
Db. Johnson.
" Thus neither the sensual mind, has any occasion to contemn
experiments as unpleasant, nor the idle as burdensome, or intollerable,
nor the virtuous as unworthy of his labors. And the same influence they
may have, on all other moral imperfections of human Nature. What
room can there be for low, and little things in a mind so usefully and
successfully employd ? What ambitious disquiets can torment that man,
who has so much glory before him, for which there are only requir'd the
delightful Works of his hands? What dark, or melancholy passions
can overshadow his heart, whose senses are always full of so many
various productions, of which the least progress, and success, will affect
hiin with an innocent joy ? What auger, envy, hatred, or revenge can
long torment his breast, whome not only the greatest, and noblest objects,
but every sand, every pible, every grass, every earth, every fly can
divert ? To whom the return of every season, every month, every day do
suggest a circle of most pleasant operations ? If the Anticnts prescib'd
it as a sufficient Remedy, against such violent passions, only to repeat the
Alphabet over : whereby there was leisure given to the mind, to recover
itself from any sudden fury : then how much more effectual Medicines,
against the same distempers, may be fetch'd from the whole Alphabet of
Nature, which represents itself to our consideration, in so many infinit
Volumes ! "
Bishop Sprat's History of the Royal Society of London for the
Improvement of Natural Knowledge. 1667.