which it grows, and the painter, to whom it is instinct with 

 beauty, or the botanist, whom it feeds with knowledge ? 



Again, think of the microscopic fungus a mere in- 

 finitesimal ovoid particle, which finds space and duration 

 enough to multiply into countless millions in the body 

 of a living fly ; and then of the wealth of foliage, the 

 luxuriance of flower and fruit, which lies between this 

 bald sketch of a plant and the giant pine of California, 

 towering to the dimensions of a cathedral spire, or the 

 Indian fig, which covers acres with its profound shadow, 

 and endures while nations and empires come and go 

 around its vast circumference ! Or, turning to the other 

 half of the world of life, picture to yourselves the great 

 finner whale, hugest of beasts that live, or have lived, 

 disporting his eighty or ninety feet of bone, muscle and 

 blubber, with easy roll, among waves in which the stout- 

 est ship that ever left dockyard would founder hope- 

 lessly ; and contrast him with the invisible animalcules 

 mere gelatinous specks, multitudes of which could, in 

 fact, dance upon the point of a needle with the same ease 

 as the angels of the schoolmen could, in imagination. 

 With these images before your minds, you may well ask 

 what community of form, or structure, is there between 

 the animalcule and the whale, or between the fungus and 

 fig-tree ? And, a fortiori, between all four ? 



Finally, if we regard substance, or material composi- 

 tion, what hidden bond can connect the flower which a 

 girl wears in her hair and the blood which courses through 

 her youthful veins ; or, what is there in common between 

 the dense and resisting mass of the oak, or the strong 

 fabric of the tortoise, and tb^**. broad disks of glassy 



