THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 135 
class of phenomena, it is perhaps better not to talk 
about them at all, but observe a stoic “ epoché,’ 
waiting for more light, and yet confessing that our 
own laughter is uncontrollable, and therefore we 
hope not unworthy of us, at many a strange crea- 
ture and strange doing which we meet, from the 
highest ape to the lowest polype. 
But, in the meanwhile, there are animals in which 
results so strange, fantastic, even seemingly horrible, 
are produced, that fallen man may be pardoned, if 
he shrinks from them in disgust. That, at least, 
must be a consequence of our own wrong state ; for 
everything is beautiful and perfect in its place. It 
may be answered, “ Yes, in its place; but its place 
is not yours. You had no business to look atit, and 
must pay the penalty for intermeddling.” I doubt 
that answer; for surely, if man have liberty to do 
anything, he has liberty to search out freely his 
heavenly Father’s works; and yet every one seems 
to have his antipathic animal; and I know one 
bred from his childhood to zoology by land and sea, 
and bold in asserting, and honest in feeling, that all 
