54 THE PRESENT. 



articulate, and the radiate. There is a plan and primal 

 pattern to each, and that plan, modified and specialised, 

 can be traced through every species and individual of the 

 division, no matter how varied and numerous they may be. 

 And what has been done to homologise the external frame- 

 work will shortly be done for the muscular, respiratory, 

 and vascular systems for the organs of digestion, secretion, 

 and reproduction so that we may no longer combine things 

 that are merely analogous with those that are homologous, 

 and thus confound, in our interpretations of nature, beings 

 that were from the first constructed on an essentially dif- 

 ferent basis. 



Proceeding on grounds such as these, the zoologist sepa- 

 rates the vertebrate from the invertebrate, the mammals 

 from the birds, the birds from the reptiles, and the rep- 

 tiles from the fishes. He also separates the invertebrate 

 shell-fish from the invertebrate crab, the crabs from the 

 sea-urchins, the sea-urchins from the star-fishes, the star- 

 fishes from the corals, and these again from the lower 

 sponges' that can scarcely be distinguished from the sea- 

 weeds that surround them. Looking at the manner in 

 which the functions of nutrition, reproduction, and sensa- 

 tion are performed in each of these classes, w r e speak of 

 "higher" and "lower" forms, of creatures of more simple 

 and of more complex organisation ; but we do not say and 

 reason and experience alike shrink from endorsing the alle- 

 gation that one form or family is less perfect than another, 

 either in its nature or in the functions it was designed to 

 perform. 



" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 

 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul ; 

 That changed in all, and yet in all the same ; 

 Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame ; 

 Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 

 Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 



