140 NATURAL HISTORY 



its appropriate work. The plant springs from the 

 ground, and its kind has done so for thousands of 

 generations. If we could but for a moment see the 

 Divine hand apply the rule, weigh the elements, and 

 join the varied cells, how changed the argument 

 would be ! But from the work the builder must 

 be known. As we walk among old ruins, it is hard 

 to realize that the stones were hewn and raised and 

 joined by men. When the American first visits 

 Mount Yernon, how difficult to realize that here 

 really is the home of the great hero whose name he 

 has ever revered. 



It is not strange, then, that this difficulty of real- 

 izing should, in the case of natural objects, some- 

 times end in doubt of a personal God. It is not 

 strange, at least, that it should be so to those who 

 see no more than they saw when children the 

 merest fragments of the common forms that sur- 

 round them. And though the wondrous works of 

 design should be described, it is not he who studies 

 them in books, but he whose eye has seen the living 

 loop and hinge that can understand their power to 

 convince. What knows the man who has merely 



