It follows that frequent quotation of proverbs will be apt to fatigue the reader, yet the danger is one which cannot wholly be avoided in this volume. Something, however, can be done by setting limitations on the scope of our subject, and in the following pages no attempt will be made to present any systematic survey of the whole immense field of Jewish proverbs, ancient, mediæval, and modern. Attention will be given chiefly to two pre-Christian collections--the _Book of Proverbs_ and _Ecclesiasticus_--and, even so, many good sayings in those books will be left unnoticed. Moreover, proverbs are not quite chaotic, for all their natural independence. They are like a forest through which many paths conduct; by following now one, now another topic it is possible to penetrate in various directions, as inclination prompts. But, even so, the peril of wearying the reader by over-many proverbs will only be lessened not removed; wherefore again--’tis a word of high wisdom--_Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is convenient for thee._ Enough of difficulties and dangers! Woe to him who goes “supping sorrows with a long spoon”! A happier task, however, does remain, before we set sail upon our quest: we have still to count our blessings. What are the virtues of proverbs? What the interests we may hope to find in our subject? The proverb does for human life something that science does for the world of Nature: it rouses the unseeing eye and the unheeding ear to the marvel of what seems ordinary. As for Nature, most of us who are not scientists are still deplorably blind to her perfections, but popular text-books have so far succeeded that we confess our ignorance with shame, and some are even penitent enough to desire that they might grow wiser. We are at least aware that there is nothing in the world not wonderful. We used to pass the spider’s web in our gardens with never a thought, but now--is not Le Fabre whispering to us of “rays equidistant and forming a beautifully regular orb,” of “polygonal lines drawn in a curve as geometry understands it.” “Which of us,” says he, pricking our human vanity, “would undertake, off-hand, without much preliminary experiment and without measuring instruments to divide a circle into a given quantity of sectors of equal width. The spider, though weighted with a wallet and tottering on threads shaken by the wind, effects the delicate division without stopping to think.”[2] The astronomer does not guard his secrets like the jealous astrologer of old; so that now-a-days many a man who possesses neither the higher mathematics nor a telescope knows more than his eyes can show him of the marvels of the stars and the mystery of space. Professor J. A. Thompson writes of _The Wonder of Life_, and behold! even he that hath no skill in biology may learn that the barren seashore is a teeming world, more strange than fairyland. Science does not make Nature marvellous; she lifts the veil of ignorance from our mind.