Mys] 



AND SYMBOLS. 



237 



of crab-fish, naked like the hermit, and very quick-sighted, is 

 the constant companion of the Pinna marina. They live and 

 lodge together in the shell which belongs to the latter. When 

 the Pinna has occasion to eat, he opens his valves, and sends 

 out his faithful purveyor to procure food. If any foe approaches, 

 the watchful crab returns with the utmost speed and anxiety 

 to his blind protector, who, being thus warned of danger, shuts 

 his valves, and escapes the rage of the enemy ; when, on the 

 contrary, the crab loads himself with booty, he makes a gentle 

 noise at the opening of the shell, which is closed during his 

 absence, and when admitted the two friends feast together on 

 the fruits of his industry. PH. 



The Principle of Mutual Attraction. 



The self-luminous stars which so thickly stud the heavens 

 are probably but the centres of numberless other systems, for it 

 is placed beyond dispute that there is no one mass of matter 

 positively isolated, but that all are alike influenced by extra- 

 neous bodies, subject to the same unerring law. This law per- 

 vades the universe, and is the principle of mutual attraction, 

 by which these floating worlds, acting and reacting on each other, 

 are buoyed up for ever in the aerial ocean of space. MAR. 



The Veil of Mystery. 



The veil of mystery hides from our gaze, not only our own 

 future, but our very origin. It envelops the whole problem 

 of life. If we trace animal and physical nature to their be- 

 ginnings, we come to the borders of a kingdom shrouded in 

 mystery. We meet in the Protista forms of organic life whose 

 characteristics are so indefinite as to make it impossible for us 

 to decide whether they are vegetables or animals ; they are 

 organisms without organs. If we try to lift the veil of mystery 

 from, protoplasm, we can discover nothing more than that it is a 

 naked contractile mass of seemingly homogeneous jelly, the 

 substratum for all the life movements of the lowest living 

 things. No one can detect any rigid line which separates what 



