LOWLY VEGETABLE FORMS. 477 



vital atoms ; the last visible organism vanishing from our view with 

 the same Divine glory upon it, as the last star that glimmers out of 

 sight on the remotest verge of space. 



These organisms further justify their existence to the utilitarian, 

 inasmuch as their study is well calculated to exercise an educational 

 influence which should not be overlooked or despised. While they 

 try the patience, they exercise the faculties by forcing attention upon 

 details. Their minuteness, their general resemblance to each other, 

 their want in many cases of very prominent or marked characteristics, 

 render it a somewhat difficult task to identify them. Long hours may 

 often be spent in ascertaining the name of a single species, and assign- 

 ing it its proper place in the tribe to which it belongs. One species 

 may often be confounded with another closely allied, and days and 

 weeks may elapse before the eye and the mind, familiarized with their 

 respective details, can observe the distinctions between them. This 

 difficulty of identification greatly sharpens one's knowledge, induces a 

 habit of paying attention to minutiae, and creates a power of distin- 

 guishing between things that differ slightly, which is exceedingly 

 valuable and important. For the eye and mind thus educated to de- 

 tect resemblances and differences in objects, which to ordinary obser- 

 vation appear widely dissimilar or precisely the same, there will be 

 abundant scope in the practical details of common every-day life, as 

 well as in the higher walks of literature, science, and art. 



The study of these plants has also a tendency to elevate and en- 

 large our conceptions of Nature ; its vastness and complexity, its in- 

 communicable grandeur, its all but infinity, opening before us newer 

 and more striking vistas with every descending step we take. The 

 farther we advance, and the wider our sphere of observation extends, 

 wonder follows on wonder, till our faculties become bewildered, and 

 our intellect falls back on itself in utter hopelessness of arriving at the 

 end. Minute as the objects are in themselves, contact with them 

 cannot fail to excite the mind, to call it forth into full and vigorous 

 exercise, to enlist its sympathies, and to expand its faculties. Many 

 eloquent pages have been written to show this elevating influence 

 upon the mind, of contact with and contemplation of the phenomena 

 of Nature ; but it is not the great and sublime objects of Nature alone 

 that produce this effect the sublimity of mountains, the majesty of 

 rivers, and the repose of forests the very humblest and simplest ob- 

 jects are calculated to awaken these emotions in a yet higher and 

 purer form. " The microscope," as Mr. Lewes has well observed, " is 

 not the mere extension of a faculty ; it is a new sense." 



There are also peculiar pleasures connected with the study of these 

 objects. There is, first, the pleasure of novelty and discovery of ex- 

 ploring a realm where every thing is comparatively new, and every 

 step is delightful ; where the forms are unfamiliar, and the modes of 

 life hitherto unimagined. There is, next, the more subtle and refined 



