LESSONS FROM NATURE, AS MANIFESTED IN MIND AND MATTER. BY ST. GEORGE MIVART, PH.D., F.R.S., SEC. L.S., F.Z.S.; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADELPHIA NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 AND 551 BROADWAY. To the Very Reverend FATHER NEWMAN, D.D. MY DEAR DR. NEWMAN, It is with a special gladness that I avail myself of your kind permission to dedicate to you, who love the natural world so keenly, the following chapters on Nature considered as one whole whereof rational man forms a part. A tribute of respectful gratitude is indeed due from one so indebted as I am. Among the many obligations I owe to you, is the ability to unite in one the Theistic and the Naturalistic conceptions of the world about us-conceptions a divorce between which is the calamity of our age. To former obligations however you have now added yet another. As an Englishman and a Catholic, I thank you with all my heart for your recent noble vindication of the rights of conscience-a vindication to which reference and appeal will, I am persuaded, be made again and again in the times which are to come. That that voice which so lately stilled the storm may long be spared to speak words of peace and wisdom-disarming prejudice and calming passion—is the most earnest hope and prayer of Yours most respectfully and affectionately, ST. GEORGE MIVART. WILMSHURST, UCKFIELD, December 8th, 1875. |