LECT. I.] INFLUENCE OF SUBROUNDINGS. 17 



that one and the self-same force, bringing forth severally, 

 according to the ancestry of each, modified and fashioned 

 into various types during untold ages of the past, the 

 various Mammalia that tenant the waters, flit in the air, 

 or trample the paths of the forest. In each of these the 

 force is manifestly the same, essentially ; but the sur- 

 roundings of the organism in which this force has been 

 enshrined have been the same during no two successive 

 moments of time, during all the ages in which the earth 

 has brought forth living creatures. 



The sensitiveness of a living creature to outward 

 impressions is excellently put by our great poet. He says 

 that you cannot press your hand with a rush, but it will 

 bear a visible mark or cicatrix, and that the eyes do 

 shut their coward gates on atomies. 



The infinite number of delicate and gentle modifica- 

 tions in the human form, all speak eloquently of the 

 influence of " surroundings." All the races of this type 

 are evidently varieties of one common species ; a species 

 whose existence upon this planet, according to Usher, 

 has been barely six thousand years. As the wind pipes, 

 so the creatures dance ; and the wind and the sun are 

 ever renewing their old contest as to who can make the 

 traveller pull off his cloak first. 



For a long while the eager, nipping wind of Siberia 

 tried this on with the Mammoth: he merely had his 

 cloak made warmer and thicker. The wind ultimately 

 killed the beast, but never got him to take his garment 



B 



