OX THE STUDY OF NATURE. 429 



greatest. "Whether any created thing occupies a more or less con- 

 siderable space, or contains a greater or lesser quantity of matter, is 

 of no importance to the naturalist, who only studies the structure of 

 the organs, the springs of life, and the different forces which set them 

 in motion ; and considered from this point of view, a vibrio* and an 

 elephant, a penicillium and a baobab, possess for him the same im- 

 portance, the same amount of interest. It would, however, be unjust 

 not to recognize the fact that there is something very legitimate in 

 the kind of reverential admiration which every man is conscious of in 

 the presence of those things that symbolize, to a certain extent, 

 power, strength, majesty, endurance of those that possess in a high 

 degree the two valuable qualities of force and greatness. Coleridge 

 tells us that we admire the cataract because it is the type of power. 

 Probably our feelings for the oak are connected with its emblematic 

 properties of permanency, vigour, and durability. All the logic of 

 logicians, and all the sentiment of natural philosophers, will never induce 

 the mass of men to regard with the same interest an ant and a lion, 

 a tuft of moss and a forest of oaks, a grain of sand and an Alpine 

 peak. I do not think, therefore, that I am stooping to a merely 

 vulgar prejudice in signalling out to the reader, among the vegetables 

 of the forests, those whose exceptional dimensions and venerable 

 antiquity are for every traveller an object of astonishment and curio- 

 sity. The truth is, that from their contemplation we derive a more 

 vivid conception of Almighty Power than from the examination of 

 even the most wonderful microscopical mechanism. To the still small 

 voice of Nature our ears are deafened by the clash and clang of an 

 ever-active world ; but we cannot refuse to listen to the roar of the 

 ocean or the reverberation of the thunder. As we move swiftly 

 onward in the press of the crowd and the race of life, we ignore the 

 tiny blade and the delicate organism beneath our feet ; but our eyes 



* The genus Vibris is the type of a tribe of animalcules commonly known as micro- 

 propie eels, remarkable for their extraordinary minuteness. One species is parasitic upon 

 wheat, and when full grown attains a quarter of an inch in length ; but the young are so 

 microscopically small that 30,000 might be contained in a single grain of wheat. 



