It is a fact which many who have observed it regret very keenly, that there is to-day a less widespread interest than formerly in natural history and general science, outside the strictly professional arena of the school and university. The field naturalists among the squires and the country parsons seem nowadays not to be so numerous and active in their delightful pursuits as formerly, and the Mechanics’ Institutes and Lecture Societies of the days of Lord Brougham have given place, to a very large extent, to musical performances, bioscopes, and other entertainments, more diverting, but not really more capable of giving pleasure than those in which science was popularised. No doubt the organisation and professional character of scientific work are to a large extent the cause of this falling-off in its attraction for amateurs. But perhaps that decadence is also due in some measure to the increased general demand for a kind of manufactured gaiety, readily sent out in these days of easy transport from the great centres of fashionable amusement to the provinces and rural districts. Before concluding this retrospect, I would venture to allude to the relations of scientific progress to religion. Putting aside the troubles connected with special creeds and churches and the claims of the clerical profession to certain funds and employments to the exclusion of laymen, it should, I think, be recognized that there is no essential antagonism between the scientific spirit and what is called the religious sentiment. ‘Religion,’ said Bishop Creighton, ‘means the knowledge of our destiny and of the means of fulfilling it.’ We can say no more and no less of Science. Men of Science seek, in all reverence, to discover the Almighty, the Everlasting. They claim sympathy and friendship with those who, like themselves, have turned away from the more material struggles of human life, and have set their hearts and minds on the knowledge of the Eternal. CHAPTER III. _NATURE’S REVENGES: THE SLEEPING SICKNESS._