36 BOEDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE 



in physiological processes. Wherever rigid experiment 

 carries us, we are safe in following this lead ; but the 

 moment we begin to theorize beyond our strict observa- 

 tion, we are in danger of falling into those mechanical 

 follies which true science has long outgrown. 



Recognizing the fact, then, that we have learned 

 nothing but the machinery of life, and are no nearer 

 to its essence, what is it that we have gained by this 

 great discovery of the cell formation and function ? 



It would have been reward enough to learn the 

 method Nature pursues for its own sake. If the sov- 

 ereign Artificer lets us into his own laboratories and 

 workshops, we need not ask more than the privilege 

 of looking on at his work. We do not know where 

 we now stand in the hierarchy of created intelligences. 

 We were made a little lower than the angels. I speak 

 it not irreverently ; as the lower animals surpass man 

 in some of their attributes, so it may be that not every 

 angel's eye can see as broadly and as deeply into the 

 material works of God as man himself, looking at the 

 firmament through an equatorial of fifteen inches' aper- 

 ture, and searching into the tissues with a twelfth 

 of an inch objective. 



But there are other positive gains of a more practi- 

 cal character. Thus we are no longer permitted to 

 place the seat of the living actions in the extreme ves- 

 sels, which are only the carriers from which each part 

 takes what it wants by the divine right of the omnipo- 

 tent nucleated cell. The organism has become, in the 



