I 



104 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [ VI . 



the sub-kingdoms are disconnected from, or indepen- 

 dent of, one another. On the contrary, in their earliest 

 condition they are all alike, and the primordial germs 

 of a man, a dog, a bird, a fish, a beetle, a snail, and 

 a polype are, in no essential structural respects, dis- 

 tinguishable. 



In this broad sense, it may with truth be said, that 

 all living animals, and all those dead creations which 

 geology reveals, are bound together by an all-pervading 

 unity of organization, of the same character, though not 

 equal in degree, to that which enables us to discern one 

 and the same plan amidst the twenty different segments 

 of a lobster's body. Truly it has been said, that to a 

 clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which 

 the Infinite may be seen. 



Turning from these purely morphological considera- 

 tions, let us now examine into the manner in which the 

 attentive study of the lobster impels us into other lines 

 of research. 



Lobsters are found in all the European seas ; but on 

 the opposite shores of the Atlantic and in the seas of 

 the southern hemisphere they do not exist. They are, 

 however, represented in these regions by very closely 

 allied, but distinct forms — the Homarsu Americanus 

 and the Homarus Capeusis: so that w r e may say that 

 the European has one species of Homarsu; the 

 American, another; the African, another; and thus 

 the remarkable facts of geographical distribution begin 

 to dawn upon us. 



Again, if we examine the contents of the earth's crust, 

 we shall find in the latter of those deposits, which have 

 served as the great burying grounds of past ages, num- 

 berless lobster-like animals, but none so similar to our 

 living lobster as to make zoologists sure that they be- 

 longed even to the same genus. If we go still further 



