xvi. APPLES OF SODOM. 291 



the vital action in the repaired parts of both plants and 

 animals be thus inferior, the type of the general 

 organism is retained. The gall-nut resembles the 

 appearance and structure of the acorn; the abnormal 

 robin redbreast pincushion, produced by an insect on a 

 shoot of the wild-rose, is formed on the same model as 

 the normal moss that appears on a variety of the culti- 

 vated rose. No new forces or laws appear in the 

 organism, no new structure is produced in it under the 

 circumstances which are described as disease. The 

 phenomena of morbid action illustrate the character 

 and relations of vital action. The destructive cancerous 

 mass, that seems as if it were a parasite that had set up 

 an independent life and structure of its own, is governed 

 by the same laws of organic growth and activity which 

 operate in the beneficial formation of the healthy organs 

 of the body. All morbid structures conform to physi- 

 ological types ; all disease-produced cells have their 

 patterns in the cells of healthy structure. 



All these specimens of God's after-work the sprouts 

 of a pollarded willow, the various varieties of galls, the 

 cicatrix of a wound, the callus formed by the union of 

 the parts of a broken bone are therefore beautiful on a 

 lower plane than the original one. And among all such 

 marred forms, which are beautiful not according to 

 God's intention, but according to the limits imposed by 

 the circumstances of the case, it is the province of art 

 and poetry to find out the ideal of God's first work. 

 And in this noble quest the standard of comparison is 

 not wanting. For notwithstanding the numerous blights 



