52 LIFE AND OKGANISATION. 



On the other side, however, we find numerous incentives to 

 a like zeal in the study of the living existences around us. 

 The simple presence of the attribute of life, as we have 

 denoted it, tells for much with every reflecting mind. But 

 this part of natural science gains also by the comparative 

 facility with which it may be successfully pursued. Few can 

 compass all that is required for experimental research, espe- 

 cially under those refinements of method which have now 

 become essential to success. Many are competent to a science 

 chiefly of observation; amidst objects present to the senses, 

 often associated with the charm of natural scenery, and con- 

 sonant to the natural tastes and habits of the mind. The 

 traveller who gathers his unknown plant in Australia or 

 Paraguay; the naturalist who discovers some new form of 

 animal life, or disentombs some fossil from its rocky sepulchre 

 of ages ; the physiologist who detects new organs or instincts 

 in animals already known all hold rank, in one degree or 

 other, as labourers in this great field. No fact so small as 

 not to find a place in the volume of natural knowledge. 



In thus distinguishing, however, the two great objects of 

 scientific pursuit, it must be kept in mind that no strict line 

 of demarcation exists between them. The progress of know- 

 ledge is ever bringing more closely together, and under the 

 dominion of common laws, facts and phenomena apparently 

 the most remote. Though rejecting the modern phrase of 

 s unity of science ' as a vague effort of language to reach an 

 ambiguous truth, we see and admit a constant propensity 

 towards unity in a more qualified sense. Facts multiply every 

 day in number, but every day they are submitted to new 

 conditions of order and comparison. Phenomena familiar 

 to the senses from the earliest ages of human records, are 

 expounded to the reason by the discoveries of our own time. 

 Life itself, taking the term in its simplest sense, can be inter- 

 preted only by the laws which pervade all matter ; and is 



