viii PREFACE 



details for instance, the construction of the teeth ; 

 and these must not be regarded in themselves as 

 merely amusing or entertaining, for, when brought 

 into connection, these details often open up the 

 most surprising and most wonderful prospects. 

 By these enquiries we do not indeed arrive at the 

 final cause of things, or at what the philosophers 

 call the Thing Itself, but from an insight into the 

 connection of the facts we obtain a higher 

 arrangement for those facts. They demand an 

 ever deeper penetration, and transport us into that 

 creative state of enthusiasm which, by being the 

 imaginative faculty of thinking-man, raises us 

 above those who remain standing amid their own 

 surroundings either in a state of blank amazement 

 or of dull enjoyment. 



I am only following the usual custom by men- 

 tioning, in conclusion, the assistance I have re- 

 ceived from my daughter Johanna, to whose 

 experienced hand I owe a series of original draw- 

 ings, from which my illustrations have beem made. 



OSCAR SCHMIDT. 



STKASBUEG : September, 1884. 



