When I began to heed the voices of nature once more, everything was soon clear to me. On the important points I soon knew everything that was necessary for me to know, and which I have recorded here in my book. There was no need of a long period of laborious research and investigation.
Everything that I have written in the following pages I learned from nature alone; her voices alone have guided me.
Let the reader judge for himself whether these teachings of pure and simple nature appear to him plausible and true. At all events I know that they have so far met with the most enthusiastic approval and acceptance on all sides, and that the good they have already done is greater by far than is generally believed. I have often had the opportunity to convince myself how much lost happiness my book has again restored, how many a blessing it has wrought.
The more man sets his face again toward nature, the more his conscience and instinct will reawaken within him, and the more acute will his organs of sense become. He is still surrounded by many happy creatures, children and especially animals, who have preserved these higher guides of life, and from whom he can learn the true course in all emergencies.
If man, therefore, has gained sufficient power of resistance to the seductions of science, he may still easily be led by the hand of nature, and will then surely soon recover health and true happiness. He will no longer be tossed about upon the ocean of life, like a ship without a rudder, destined to be dashed to pieces against rocks and reefs.
THE JUNGBORN.
When after a long, long search I came from error to truth, from night to light, from disease to health, I was seized by a great desire to impart my experiences to my fellowmen and to let them profit by them.
I determined to place the strength and vigor which I had but just regained, entirely at the disposal of the great cause. I resolved to become the champion of nature, to work for her, and
