128 SPRING. 



position, more especially if it be bred there. We do 

 not know, and perhaps we shall never learn by what the 

 different markings and manners of animals are produced, 

 but we do know that the circumstances, the tempera- 

 ture, the humidity, the degree of light, and probably a 

 thousand other actions of the atmosphere, which the 

 observation of the chemist has not yet been able to de- 

 tect, may have the chief influence in the production of 

 these; and, therefore, they afford at least a hope, that 

 the men of a future age shall know somewhat more of 

 the working of nature, than we of the present, and that 

 they will do so by a more careful examination of the 

 preceding and contemporary phenonema. 



When we look at what has been done in plants (though 

 there the philosophy has not always kept pace with 

 art) we have something more than hope of impovement 

 if our masters in the mysteries of nature would 

 but abate a little of their proneness to wonder, and 

 tell marvellous stories, and " pull the world to pieces" 

 in order to see how it is made, just as a clever child 

 does a rattle. There is knowledge obtained by the 

 child in this operation, though not quite the kind or 

 the degree that is sought for, the rattle is gone, and the 

 discovery is a bit of tin-plate and two or three chips 

 of flint. There is no objection to the pulling in pieces; 

 the result of it has done much, but it has been too 

 exclusive ; and it is impossible to understand fully even 

 the mechanical action of an organized body from the 

 dissection of it. That system is complete only when we 

 can put together again after we have taken to pieces ; 

 and nature refuses us that privilege with any of her 

 works. We may make experiments with matter, and 



