THE ARCHIPELAGO OF CHAUSEY. 37 



asunder to furnish a retreat within their narrow 

 crevices for entire families of living beings. 



In physical science man controls, to a certain 

 extent, the object of his investigations. Thus, for 

 instance, in the examination of a machine he may 

 successively study each of the parts, consider their 

 respective actions, and judge of the effect of the whole. 

 It is very different, however, in the case of the 

 natural sciences generally, and especially of zoology. 

 Here we must wait and watch. The multiplicity of 

 vital acts in animals which occupy the highest places 

 in the scale of being too frequently conceals the truth 

 from us, while it is impossible for us to imitate the 

 physicist in isolating a single phenomenon ; for when 

 we do this, the whole is lost to our inquiry, and the 

 animal ceases to exist. But in proportion as we 

 descend the scale of being, we find that organisation 

 is simplified, and that life, without being altered in 

 its essential nature, is to a certain degree modified in 

 its manifestations. The animal machine, if we may 

 use the expression, is shown to us piece by piece, as 

 if to reveal the action of its several parts, and to de- 

 monstrate to us the great laws of physiology apart 

 from all accessory phenomena. These laws are the 

 same for the highest mammal and the lowest zoo- 

 phyte ; the same for man, whose complicated anatomy 

 has been studied for ages past, and for the sponge, 

 whose organs appear to be blended into one sole 

 living homogeneous mass, the smallest particle of 

 which participates in all the properties accorded to 

 the entire organism. It will be readily conceived 

 how much interest attaches to observations such as 



D 3 



