70 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



whole family oi Actinia;, (sea-anemones,) and in 

 a quite opposite one the Holothurice, those strange 

 sea-cucumbers, with their mouth-fringe of feath- 

 ery gills, of which you shall see some anon. 

 Not (understand well) that there has been any 

 '• tx-ansmutation " or " development of species," 

 (of individuals, as it ought honestly to be called, 

 if the notion iS intended to represent a supposed 

 fact,) — a theory as unsupported by experiment 

 and induction, as it is by a priori reason : but 

 that there has been, in the Creative Mind, as 

 it gave life to new species, a development of 

 the idea on which older species were created, 

 in order that every mesh of the great net might 

 gradually be supplied, and there should be no 

 gaps in the perfect variety of Nature's forms. 

 This development is the only one of which we 

 can conceive, if we allow that a Mind presides 

 over the universe, and not a mere brute neces- 

 sity, a Law (absurd misnomer) without a Law- 

 giver ; and to it (strangely enough coinciding 

 here and there with the Platonic doctrine of Eter- 

 nal Ideas existing in the Divine Mind) all fresh 

 inductive discovery seems to point more and more ; 

 and especially Professor Owen's invaluable tracts 

 on the Homology of the Vertebrate Skeleton. 



