84 PHYSIOLOGY Or LIFE. 



impressive, the power of sound, with the first rudiments 

 of modulation ! That all languages designate the melody 

 of birds as singing (though according to Blumenbach man 

 only sings, while birds do but whistle), demonstrates that 

 it has been felt as, what indeed it is, a tentative and pro- 

 phetic prelude of something yet to come. With this con- 

 join the power and the tendency to acquire articulation, 

 and to imitate speech ; conjoin the building instinct and 

 the migratory, the monogamy of several species, and the 

 pairing of almost all; and we shall have collected new 

 instances of the usage (I dare not say law) according to 

 which Nature lets fall, in order to resume, and steps back- 

 ward the furthest, when she means to leap forwards with 

 the greatest concentration of energy. 



For lo ! in the next step of ascent the power of sensi- 

 bility has assumed her due place and rank : her minority 

 is at an end, and the complete and universal presence of 

 a nervous system unites absolutely, by instanteity of time 

 what, with the due allowances for the transitional process, 

 had before been either lost in sameness, or perplexed by 

 multiplicity, or compacted by a finer mechanism. But 

 with this, all the analogies with which Nature had delighted 

 us in the preceding step seem lost, and, with the single 

 exception of that more than valuable, that estimable 

 philanthropist, the dog, and, perhaps, of the horse and 

 elephant, the analogies to ourselves, which we can discover 

 in the quadrupeds or quadrumani, are of our vices, our 

 follies, and our imperfections. The facts in confirmation 

 of both the propositions are so numerous and so obvious, 

 the advance of Nature, under the predominance of the 

 third synthetic power, both in the intensity of life and in 



