34 The Bible of Nature 



kinematograph of the successive stages, and yet 

 in its essence absolutely beyond our understand- 

 ing. We may ask about the numerous different 

 kinds, some dwarfs, some giants, about their dis- 

 tribution over the face of the earth, about the few 

 that have gills and thus point to a remote origin 

 of the burrowing race from aquatic forms. We 

 can think of the time very long again when the 

 pioneers left the fresh water and found a new world 

 underground, how for long they probably enjoyed 

 ages of peace, how, first, centipedes and long after- 

 ward moles disturbed their solitudes. In a rather 

 different sense than was originally meant may we 

 not say of the worm, "Thou art my brother" ? 



We have given three homely illustrations, but the 

 point is, that everything is an illustration. Every- 

 thing is equally wonderful if we know enough 

 about it. It is true that we suffer from the limi- 

 tations of our senses and of our sympathies, as 

 well as of our knowledge; he who reads the rocks 

 may never have seen the stars, and the coleop- 

 terist whose heart is in the right place as regards 

 the beetle-world may never have heard the 

 throstle sing. This is one of the defects of the 

 quality we are discussing, we become preoccupied 

 with one kind of wonder, but it is infinitely better 

 than not having the quality at all. What we are 

 driving at is, of course, what every nature-poet, 

 from the Hebrew psalmist to George Meredith, 



