270 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



or less definite kind in these two regions. Strange is it 

 .to think that the nervous apparatus of the lowest forms of 

 life are thus bound in a connected series with that of the 

 highest forms, and that there is such a veritable link between 

 the power which guides the actions of the lowliest organism 

 and that which evolves the qualities and properties of mind 

 itself. 



The animal and plant worlds are thus shown to be 

 bound together by ties and characters of a very close and 

 intimate kind. The entire fabric of life might very aptly be 

 compared to a great tree, the branches of which diverge 

 most widely in their highest levels ; whilst the root-portion 

 serves, nevertheless, to link and unite the diversities of the 

 branches in a common bond. And if this parallelism of 

 the common origin of animal and plant life should prove to 

 be something more real than a convenient form of expressing 

 the fact that science is unable to separate out the one great 

 group of living beings from the other, the consideration of 

 the unity of life and the probablity of the common origin 

 of living beings, will certainly not lessen the wonder and 

 interest with which we must regard the forces and powers, 

 which, out of a community of material, have produced the 

 infinite variety of living forms and which have made the 

 universe of life the wondrous thing it is. 



