extent of
the earth is a benefit? If any one gave you money, you would
call that a benefit. God has buried countless masses of gold
and silver in the earth. If a house were given you, bright with
marble, its roof beautifully painted with colours and gilding,
you would call it no small benefit. God has built for you a
mansion that fears no fire or ruin ... covered with a roof
which glitters in one fashion by day, and in another by
night.... Whence comes the breath you draw; the light by which
you perform the actions of your life? the blood by which your
life is maintained? the meat by which your hunger is
appeased?... The true God has planted, not a few oxen, but all
the herds on their pastures throughout the world, and furnished
food to all the flocks; he has ordained the alternation of
summer and winter ... has invented so many arts and varieties
of voice, so many notes to make music.... We have implanted in
us the seed of all ages, of all arts; and God our Master brings
forth our intellects from obscurity.--SENECA.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The world we live in is a fairyland of exquisite beauty, our very
existence is a miracle in itself, and yet few of us enjoy as we might,
and none as yet appreciate fully, the beauties and wonders which
surround us. The greatest traveller cannot hope even in a long life to
visit more than a very small part of our earth, and even of that which
is under our very eyes how little we see!

What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. When we turn our eyes
to the sky, it is in most cases merely to see whether it is likely to
rain. In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, geologists the
fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportsmen the
cover for game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not
at all follow that we should see them.

It is good, as Keble says, "to have our thoughts lift up to that world
where all is beautiful and glorious,"--but it is well to realise also
how much of this world is beautiful. It has, I know, been maintained, as
for instance by Victor Hugo, that the general effect of beauty is to
sadden. "Comme la vie de l'homme, meme la plus prospere, est toujours au
fond plus triste que gaie, le ciel sombre nous est harmonieux. Le ciel
eclatant et joyeux nous est ironique. La Nature triste nous ressemble et
nous console; la Natu