ON THE MORPHOLOGICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 201 



of purely mental, abstraction that our study begins and 

 is prosecuted. One very powerful instrument of re- 

 search, where through size and distance be they very 

 great or very small objects of nature are beyond our 

 actual reach, is given us in the diagram and the model. 

 There we, for the sake of study, picture or imitate on 

 a reduced or an enlarged scale the movements of the 

 heavenly bodies which are too large or of the atoms 

 which are too small for our actual grip. Now and 

 again the natural philosopher who thus uses the 

 abstract methods of experiment, registration, and cal- 

 culation, is forcibly reminded that he is in danger of 

 dealing not with natural, but with artificial, things. In- 

 stances are plentiful where, through the elaboration of 

 fanciful theories, the connection with the real world has 

 been lost and scientific reasoning has been led astray, to 

 be recalled to a more fruitful path only by the effort of 

 some original genius living in immediate communion 

 with the actual world. 



There is, moreover, in addition to the aspect of con- 2. 



Convenience 



venience. one very powerful inducement for scientific an , 



r ness of the 



workers to persevere in their process of abstraction, in ^straet?on. 

 the study of such things and phenomena as can be 

 handled in the laboratory and the workshop, and studied 

 by diagram and by model. This is the practical useful- 

 ness of such researches in the arts and industries. In 

 these we do actually abstract the possessions of nature 

 from their proper hiding-places ; we drag the minerals 

 from the bowels of the earth ; we cut up the timber 

 of exotic growth into artificial fragments ; we break 

 up that natural equilibrium in which electrical and 



